Topic : Computer Appreciation

M1-R4: IT TOOLS AND BUSINESS SYSTEMS

Introduction to Computer

1. The term "Computer" is derived from the Latin word "Computare" which
means"to compute" or "to calculate."
2. Computers are machines that perform tasks or calculations according to a set of
instructions or programs.
3. It is an electronic device used to store data and gives the results accurately
within a fraction of second.

4. Computers are extensively used everywhere.

5. It mainly consist of four basic unit such as,
 Input Unit
 Storage Unit
 CPU
 Output Unit
6. Classification of Computer
 Analog Computer
 Hybrid Computer
 Digital Computer

Fig : Types of Computer

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Analog Computer

1. An analog computer represents the data as physical quantities and operates on

the data by manipulating the quantities.
2. It is designed to process data in which the variable quantities vary continuously.

Fig : Analog Computer

Hybrid Computer

1. A hybrid is a combination of digital and analog computers.

2. It combines the best features of both types of computers, i.e. It has the speed of
an analog computer and the memory and accuracy of digital computer.
3. It accepts analog signals, converts them into digital and processes them in digital
form.
4. A hybrid computer may use or produce analog data or digital data. It accepts a
continuously varying input, which is then converted into a set of discrete values
for digital processing.

Fig : Hybrid Computer

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Digital Computer

1. A digital computer is designed to process the data in numerical form, its circuits
perform mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and
division.
2. The numbers operated on by a digital computer are expressed in the binary
system.
3. Digital Computers are generally classified by size and power as follows
 Micro Computer : Micro Computer is a small, relatively inexpensive
computer with a microprocessor as its CPU. The invention of the
microprocessor (single chip CPU) gave birth to the much cheaper
microcomputers. Micro Computers are commonly divided into four types
such as; Desktop, Laptop, Notebook, PDA (Personal Digital Assistant).

 Mini Computer : Mini computers were designed for control,

instrumentation, human interaction, and communication switching as it is
distinct from calculation and record keeping. A small, multi-user
computer that can support 10 to hundred users simultaneously.

 Mainframe Computer : Mainframe Computers is a powerful multi-user

computer that can support thousand users simultaneously. Mainframe
computers can also process data at very high speeds, i.e., hundreds of
million instructions per second and they are also quite expensive.
Normally, they are used in banking, airlines and railways, etc. for their
applications.

 Super Computer : Super Computers are best in terms of processing

capacity and also the most expensive one. An extremely fast computer
that can perform hundreds of millions instructions per second.

Characteristics of Computer

1. Computers have some important features which have made them so popular.
2. A Computer can be categorized according to
 Speed
a. Computers work at an incredible speed.
b. It can carry out instructions at a very high speed.
c. A powerful computer is capable of performing about 3-4 million
simple instructions per second.
d. It can perform arithmetic and logical operations within a fraction
of second.
 Accuracy
a. Computer provides a high degree of accuracy.

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b. Computers perform all jobs with 100% accuracy.

c. The degree of accuracy of a computer depends on the instruction
and processor type.
 Versatility
a. Computer is versatile in nature.
b. It can perform different types of task easily.
c. At one moment user can use the computer to prepare a letter
document and in the next moment they may play music or print a
document.
 Power of remembering
a. A computer can store and recall any information because it has
secondary storage.
b. All information can be retained as long as desired by the user and
that can be recalled almost simultaneously and accurately even
after several years.
 Diligence
a. Computers can perform long and complex calculations with the
same speed and accuracy from the start till the end.
b. Being a machine, a computer does not suffer from the human traits
of tiredness and lack of concentration.
 Storage
a. Large volume of data and information can be stored in the
computer and also retrieved whenever required.
b. Computer has two types of storage.
c. They are Primary storage and Secondary storage.
d. In Primary Storage, a limited amount of data can be stored
temporarily like RAM, ROM. Secondary storage can store a large
amount of data permanently like floppy and compact disk.

Components of Computer System

1. The computer is an electronic device that accepts (reads) data from the user and
processes the data by performing calculations and operations on it, and
generates (writes) the desired output.
2. A computer consists of four major components such as
 Input Devices (Input Unit)
 CPU (Processing Unit)
 Memory (Storage Unit)
 Output Devices (Output Unit)

Fig : Components of Computer

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Input Unit

1. An input device is a hardware or peripheral device used to send data to a

computer.
2. An input device allows users to communicate and feed instructions and data to
computers for processing, display, storage and/or transmission.
3. The important and most commonly used input devices are
 Keyboard
 Mouse
 Other input devices are
a. Joystick
b. Scanner
c. Barcode Reader

CPU (Processing Unit)

1. The CPU is the heart of the computer, it is the part of a computer which
interprets and executes instruction.
2. Functional block of CPU The two components in CPU are
 Arithmetic and logic unit (ALU) : The ALU performs arithmetic and
logical operations. Arithmetic operations include addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division. Logical operations include comparing
numbers, letters and special characters. The ALU is a fundamental
building block of the Central Processing Unit of a computer.
 Control Unit (CU) : A Control Unit (CU) handles all processor control
signals. It directs all input and output flow, fetches code for instructions
from microprograms and directs other units and models by providing
control and timing signals.

Fig : Functional of CPU

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Memory Unit

1. Computer memory is a device that stores computer's data and programs.

2. It stores program, data results or any kind of information.
3. Memory stores binary information, i.e. 0's and 1's in internal storage areas in the
computer.
4. Moreover, the term memory is usually used as shorthand for physical memory,
which refers to the actual chips capable of holding data.
5. Some computers also use virtual memory, which expands physical memory onto
a hard disk.

Fig : Memory and size specification

Output Unit

1. Output devices are peripheral equipment that converts a computer's output to a

form that can be seen, heard or used as an input for another device, process or
system.
2. The important output devices, which are used in computer systems are
 Monitors
 Printer
 Graphic Plotter

Computer - Number System

1. A computer can understand positional number system where they are only in the
form of digits, alphabet, symbols, video, audio, etc.,
2. But the computer can understand only 0s and 1s, so it converts all data into 0s
and 1s.
3. A value of each digit in a number can be determined using
 The digit
 The position of the digit in the number
 The base of the number system (where base is defined as the total
number of digits available in the number system).

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4. Number system used in the computer is classified into

 Binary number system
 Decimal number system
 Octal number system
 Hexadecimal number system

Fig :Classification of Number System

Binary number system

1. The binary number system is a numbering system that represents numeric

values using two unique digits (0 and 1).
2. It is also called as base (2) number system.
3. Each position in a binary number represents a 0 power of the base (2), that is, 2 0
.
4. The last position in a binary number represents x power of the base (2), that is,2x
where x represents the last position 1. For e.g. 1101.101(2)

Fig : Digital Representation of Binary Numbers

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5. The leftmost bit is called Most Significant Bit (MSB) and the rightmost bit is
called Least Significant Bit (LSB).

Fig : MSB and LSB

Fig : Example of Binary values

Decimal Number System

1. The number system that we use in our day-to-day life is the decimal number
system.
2. The decimal number system has a base 10 as it uses 10 digits from 0 to 9. In
decimal number system, to the left of the decimal point represent units, tens,
hundreds, thousands and so on.
3. Each position represents a specific power of the base (10).

Fig : Representation of Place Value

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Fig : Digits Representation of Decimal Number

Example :

 The above example shows that, decimal number 5319(10), weight of each digit is
power of 10.
 Each digit has position number is from right(0) to left(3). That is first digit on
right is zero, the second digit on the right is 1 and so on up to 3.

Binary to Decimal Conversion

1. Multiply each bit by 2n , where n is "weight" of bit.

2. The weight is position of the bit, which starts from 0 on right, then 1 and goes on.
3. Add the result.

Example :

 The decimal equivalent of 100111 (2) is 3910)

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Decimal to Binary Conversions

1. The easiest way to convert decimal to its binary equivalent is to use division
algorithm.
2. Divide by two, keep track of remainder at each step.
3. Put remainder bit as 0, if that number gets divided by two.
4. Put remainder bit as 1, if that number is not divided by two.

Example :

 The Binary equivalent of 25(10) is 11001(2)

Introduction to ASCII Code

1. ASCII stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange".

2. ASCII character encoding provides a standard way to represent characters using
numeric codes.
3. These include upper and lower-case alphabetic characters, numbers, and
punctuation symbols.
4. ASCII was actually designed for use with teletypes and so the descriptions are
somewhat obscure.
5. ASCII codes are broadly classified into three groups
 Non printable ASCII codes :
a. 33 non printable special characters. The first 32 characters (decimal value
from 0 to 31) which represent letters, digits, punctuation marks and a few
miscellaneous symbols.
 Printable ASCII codes :
b. 94 standard printable characters (decimal value range from 33 to 126)
which represent letters, digits, punctuation marks and a few
miscellaneous symbols.
c. The following table originates from the older, American systems, which
worked on 7-bit character tables.
 Extended ASCII codes :

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a. Extended ASCII uses eight instead of seven bits, which adds 128
additional characters.
b. This gives extended ASCII the ability for extra characters, such as special
symbols, foreign language letters and drawing characters.

Fig : ASCII control characters (0-31 and 127) & ASCII printable characters (32-126)
(most commonly referred) Table.

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Fig : Extended ASCII characters (128-255) Table

Unicode
1. Unicode is a universal character encoding standard.
2. It defines the way individual characters are represented in text files, web pages
and other types of documents.
3. ASCII, which was designed to represent only basic English characters, but
Unicode was designed to support characters from all languages around the
world.

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4. The standard ASCII character set supports only supports 128 characters, while
Unicode can support roughly 1,000,000 characters.
5. While ASCII uses only one byte to represent each character, Unicode supports up
to 4 bytes for each character.
6. The Unicode chart contains U+0000 to U+FFFF Unicode characters.
7. The table shows the range of U+0000 to U+0BFF Unicode characters, decimal
values from 0 to 3071 and the name of Unicode characters from Basic Latin to
Tamil

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