Monitor: The "Television" screen that allows you to see what the computer is doing. Many newcomers to computing mistakenly think of the monitor as the computer itself. Computers can operate without a monitor, but computer users cannot.
Motherboard: The circuit board on which most of the major electronic components are situated. Most manufacturers integrate cable attachment ports on the back-end of the motherboard. They also include slots so that owners can add their own cable attachment ports. The slots are designed to accept cards. These are normally found near the back of the computer case.
Mouse: A common input device used to tell a computer what it needs to do. With the invention of the Macintosh and Windows operating systems, computer users needed a device to point at objects on the screen and select them.
MS-DOS: An older operating system that powered personal computers through their beginning years. Prior to the development of the graphics-oriented Macintosh and Windows operating systems, this system relied on typing commands one line at a time to tell the computer what you wanted it to do. This system is still in use in the Windows family of software and still has many practical uses. Windows 3.1 relies on MS-DOS to operate. MS-DOS stands for Microsoft-Disk Operating System.