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What is a Computer?

A computer is an electronic device, operating

under the control of instructions (software)
stored in its own memory unit, that can accept
data (input), manipulate data (process), and
produce information (output) from the
processing. Generally, the term is used to
describe a collection of devices that function
together as a system.

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Devices that comprise a computer system
Monitor Speaker
(output) (output) System unit
(processor, memory…)

Printer
(output)

Storage devices
(CD-RW, Floppy,
Hard disk, zip,…)
Mouse
(input)
Scanner Keyboard
(input) (input)

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What Does a Computer Do?

Computers can perform four general operations,

which comprise the information processing cycle.

 Input
 Process
 Output
 Storage

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 All computer processing requires data, which is a collection of raw
facts, figures and symbols, such as numbers, words, images, video
and sound, given to the computer during the input phase.
 Computers manipulate data to create information. Information is
data that is organized, meaningful, and useful.
 During the output Phase, the information that has been created is
put into some form, such as a printed report.
 The information can also be put in computer storage for future use.

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Why Is A Computer So Powerful?
 The ability to perform the information
processing cycle with amazing speed.
 Reliability (low failure rate).
 Accuracy.
 Ability to store huge amounts of data and
information.
 Ability to communicate with other computers.

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How Does a Computer Know what
to do?
 It must be given a detailed list of instructions,
called a compute program or software, that
tells it exactly what to do.
 Before processing a specific job, the computer
program corresponding to that job must be
stored in memory.
 Once the program is stored in memory the
compute can start the operation by executing
the program instructions one after the other.
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 What Are The Primary Components Of A
Computer ?
 Input devices.
 Central Processing Unit
(containing the control
unit and the
arithmetic/logic unit).
 Memory.
 Output devices.
 Storage devices.

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Input Devices
Keyboard.
Mouse.

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Keyboard
The most commonly used input device is the
keyboard on which data is entered by manually
keying in or typing certain keys. A keyboard
typically has 101 or 105 keys.

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Mouse

Is a pointing device which is used to control the

movement of a mouse pointer on the screen to
make selections from the screen. A mouse has
one to five buttons. The bottom of the mouse is
flat and contains a mechanism that detects
movement of the mouse.

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The Central Processing
Unit
The central processing unit (CPU) contains
electronic circuits that cause processing to
occur. The CPU interprets instructions to the
computer, performs the logical and arithmetic
processing operations, and causes the input and
output operations to occur. It is considered the
“brain” of the computer.

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Memory

Memory also called Random Access Memory or

RAM (temporary memory) is the main memory
of the computer. It consists of electronic
components that store data including numbers,
letters of the alphabet, graphics and sound. Any
information stored in RAM is lost when the
computer is turned off.

Read Only Memory or ROM is memory that is

etched on a chip that has start-up directions for
your computer. It is permanent memory.

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Amount of RAM in
Computers
The amount of memory in computers is typically
measured in kilobytes or megabytes. One kilobyte (K
or KB) equals approximately 1,000 memory locations
and one megabyte (M or MB) equals approximately
one million locations A memory location, or byte,
usually stores one character.
Therefore, a computer with 8 MB of memory can
store approximately 8 million characters. One
megabyte can hold approximately 500 pages of text
information.

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1 byte = 8 bits

1 kilobyte (K / Kb) = 2^10 bytes = 1,024 bytes

1 megabyte (M / MB) = 2^20 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes

1 gigabyte (G / GB) = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes

Output Devices

Output devices make the information resulting

from the processing available for use. The two
output devices more commonly used are the
printer and the computer screen.

The printer produces a hard copy of your output,

and the computer screen produces a soft copy of
your output.

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Storage Devices

Auxiliary storage devices are used to store data

when they are not being used in memory. The
most common types of auxiliary storage used on
personal computers are floppy disks, hard disks
and CD-ROM drives.

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Floppy Disks

A floppy disk is a portable, inexpensive storage

medium that consists of a thin, circular, flexible
plastic disk with a magnetic coating enclosed in
a square-shaped plastic shell.

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Structure Of Floppy Disks
 Initially Floppy disks were 8-inches wide, they then
shrank to 5.25 inches, and today the most widely used
folly disks are 3.5 inches wide and can typically store
1.44 megabytes of data.
 A folly disk is a magnetic disk, which means that it used
magnetic patterns to store data.
 Data in floppy disks can be read from and written to.
 Formatting is the process of preparing a disk for
reading and writing.
 A track is a narrow recording band that forms a full
circle on the surface of the disk.

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 The disk’s storage locations are divided into pie-shaped
sections called sectors.
 A sectors is capable of holding 512 bytes of data.
 A typical floppy stores data on both sides and has 80
tracks on each side with 18 sectors per track.

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Hard Disks
 Another form of auxiliary storage is a hard disk. A hard
disk consists of one or more rigid metal plates coated
with a metal oxide material that allows data to be
magnetically recorded on the surface of the platters.
 The hard disk platters spin at a high rate of speed,
typically 5400 to 7200 revolutions per minute (RPM).
 Storage capacites of hard disks for personal computers
range from 10 GB to 120 GB (one billion bytes are called
a gigabyte).

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Compact Discs
 A compact disk (CD), also called an optical disc, is a flat
round, portable storage medium that is usually 4.75
inch in diameter.
 A CD-ROM (read only memory), is a compact disc that
used the same laser technology as audio CDs for
recording music. In addition it can contain other types
of data such as text, graphics, and video.
 The capacity of a CD-ROM is 650 MB of data.

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Computer Software

Computer software is the key to productive

use of computers. Software can be
categorized into two types:

 Operating system software

 Application software.

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Operating System
Software
Operating system software tells the computer
how to perform the functions of loading, storing
and executing an application and how to
transfer data.
Today, many computers use an operating system
that has a graphical user interface (GUI) that
provides visual clues such as icon symbols to
help the user. Microsoft Windows
98,xp,vista,and windows 7 is widely used
graphical operating systems. DOS (Disk
Operating System) is an older but still widely
used operating system that is text-based.

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Application Software

Application Software consists of programs that

tell a computer how to produce information.
Some of the more commonly used packages are:

 Word processing
 Electronic spreadsheet
 Database
 Presentation graphics

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 Word Processing

 Word Processing software is used to create and print

documents. A key advantage of word processing
software is that users easily can make changes in
documents.

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 Electronic Spreadsheets

 Electronic spreadsheet software allows the user to add,

subtract, and perform user-defined calculations on
rows and columns of numbers. These numbers can be
changed and the spreadsheet quickly recalculates the
new results.

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 Database Software

 Allows the user to enter, retrieve, and update data in an

organized and efficient manner, with flexible inquiry
and reporting capabilities.

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 Presentation Graphics

 Presentation graphic software allows the user to create

documents called slides to be used in making the
presentations. Using special projection devices, the
slides display as they appear on the computer screen.

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