CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SYSTEM II

Computer System:
A computer along with additional hardware, software, and user together is called a computer
system.
Components of a computer system
 HARDWARE
 SOFTWARE
 HEARTWARE/ LIVEWARE

Software

Hardware needs to be operated by a set of instructions. These sets of instructions are referred to
as software. It is that component of a computer system, which we cannot touch or view
physically. It comprises the instructions and data to be processed using the computer hardware.
The computer software and hardware coordinate and complete the task.

Definition:- Software is a set of instructions and data that makes hardware functional to
complete the desired task.

Need of Software- The sole purpose of the software is to govern the operation of a computer
system and make the hardware useful and operational. We cannot instruct the hardware of a
computer directly. The software acts as an interface between the user and the hardware.

Depending on the mode of interaction with hardware and the functions to be performed, the
software can be broadly classified into two categories:

(i) System software

(ii) Application software.

(i) System Software

The software that provides the basic functionality to operate a computer by interacting
directly with its supporting hardware is termed system software.

System software controls internal computer operations like

 Reading data from input devices
 Manage the data flow between different components
 Checking system components
 Converting data/instructions to computer understandable form
 Memory management
 To execute the application software
 Transmitting processed information to the output devices.

Classification of System software :

The system software can further classified into two categories:
a. Operating System
b. Language Processor

a. Operating System

The operating system is a set of programs that act as an interface between a user and
hardware. OS is a platform between hardware and user that is responsible for the
management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of a computer.
OS acts as the resource manager of the computer and it hosts the several applications that
run on a computer.

FUNCTIONS OF OPERATING SYSTEM

• Processor management
Loads, schedules and processes the programs.
• Memory management
Allocates /De-allocation of memory for program execution.
• Device management
Communicate and control various I/O devices.
• Storage management
Manages and controls the storage device to provide space to program for execution & data
to save ( both primary and secondary memories).
• User interface
Act as an interface between a user and the hardware.

TYPE OF OPERATING SYSTEM

• Single-User Operating System: These operating systems work on a single task & single
user at a time. E.g. MS DOS
• Single-User, Multi-Task Operating System: These operating systems work on more than
one task and process them concurrently at a time. E.g. Windows, BOSS
• Multiuser Operating System: In these OS, multiple users are allowed to access the same
data or information at a time via a network. E.g. Unix, Linux, Windows.
• Multiprocessing Operating System: Here, a single process runs on two or more processors.
 All the processing and their management take place in a parallel way, hence this OS is
also called Parallel Processing. E.g. Linux, UNIX, Windows.
• Embedded Operating System: These are embedded in a device, which is located in ROM.
E.g. OS of microwaves, washing machine.
• Distributed Operating System: In these OS, the computers work in cooperation with each
other.

Programming Tools
To get some work done by the computer, we need to give instructions which are applied on
the input data to get the desired outcome. Computer languages are developed for writing
these instructions. Computers can understand only the language of electricity ( ie. 0 and 1).
It is very difficult for a human to write instructions in the form of 1s and 0s.
Different types of computer programming languages are developed to simplify the coding.
Classification of Programming Languages:
 Low-level Language
 Assembly Language
 High-level Language

Low-level languages / Machine language

Low-level languages are machine-dependent languages. Machine language uses 1s and 0s to
write instructions that are directly understood and executed by the computer. However,
writing a code in machine language is difficult as one has to remember all operation codes
and machine addresses.

Assembly language
To simplify the writing of code, assembly language was developed that allowed usage of
English-like words, digits and symbols instead of 1s and 0s. However, one major drawback
of writing code in this language is that the code is computer specific, i.e., the code written
for one type of CPU cannot be used for another type of CPU.
Computers can understand only machine language; there is a continuous need for conversion
from assembly language to machine-level language, for which translators are needed. Also
finding errors in the code written in machine language is difficult.

High level language

High-level languages are machine-independent and are simpler to write code into. Instructions
use English words and sentences, and each high-level language follows a set of rules.
However, these languages are not directly understood by the computer. Hence, translators are
needed to translate high-level language codes into machine language.
Examples of high-level languages include C++, Java, Python, etc.

b. Language processors
The computer can understand only machine language, a translator program is needed to
convert programs written in assembly or high-level language to machine language. These
translator programs are called Language Processors.
The program code written in assembly or high-level language is called source code. The source
code is converted by a translator into the machine-understandable form called object (machine)
code. Language Processors do the conversion task of different types of computer languages to
machine language and vice versa.

There are three types of Language Processors:

* Assembler
* Compiler
* Interpreter

Assembler: The translator program used to convert the code written in assembly language to
machine language is called assembler. Each assembler can understand a specific
microprocessor instruction set only and hence; the machine code is not portable.

Compiler: It converts high-level language code to machine code in one session.

It takes time because it has to translate high-level code to machine language all at once and
then save the executable object code to memory. If the code follows all syntactic rules of the
language, then it is executed by the computer. Once translated, the compiler is not needed.

Interpreter translates one line at a time instead of the whole program in one go. An
interpreter takes one line, converts it into executable code if the line is syntactically correct,
and then it repeats these steps for all lines in the source code. Hence, the interpreter is
always needed whenever a source code is to be executed.

ii. Application Software

Application software is a set of programs necessary to carry out operations for a specified
application. These programs are written by programmers to enable computers to perform
specific tasks such as word processing, financial accounting, result preparation, salary
processing, ticket booking etc.

The application software can be further subdivided into four categories:

 General-purpose application software / Packages
  Customised application software
 Utility Software
 Developer Tools.
a. General Purpose application software / Package
The application software developed for generic applications, to cater to a bigger audience in
general is called general-purpose application software / Package. These are ready-to-use
software for daily use purposes. Major and most common categories of general-purpose
software are Word processing software, Spreadsheets, Graphics, multimedia and
presentation, Database management systems etc.
Example: Ms-office, Adobe Photoshop, Mozilla web browser, iTunes, Adobe Acrobat
Reader, MySql etc. fall in the category of general-purpose software.

b. Customised/ Specific Purpose application software

These are custom or tailor-made application software that is developed to meet the requirements
of a specific organisation or an individual, this software which is designed for specific tasks.
Some examples of Specific Purpose application software include Websites, School management
software, accounting software, Payroll, Hotel Mgmt, Hospital Mgmt, Stock Mgmt etc.

c. Utility software
Software used for maintenance and configuration of the computer system is called utility
software. Some system utilities assist the operating system in carrying out certain specialized
tasks like disk defragmentation tool, formatting utility, system restore utility, etc.
Another set of utilities are those that are required to improve the performance of the system
like Anti-virus software, Disk cleaner tool, Disk compression software, and Backup utility.

d. Developer Tools
When a programmer develops software and programs, they have a prewritten set of codes,
functions, scripts etc. available to do a variety of tasks, which they can use directly in their
code. These predefined sets of codes are called developer tools or software libraries.
Software libraries can be used in the development of new software and applications.
For example, Python comes with many software libraries like NumPy, SciPy, and Panda
Library.