Md.

Al Mamun IT Officer CRP-Mirpur

What is Computer?
Computer is an electronic device that is designed to work with Information. The term computer is derived from the Latin term compute, this means to calculate. Computer cannot do anything without a Program. it represents the decimal numbers through a string of binary digits. The Word 'Computer' usually refers to the Center Processor Unit plus Internal memory.
Computer is an advanced electronic device that takes raw data as input from the user and processes these data under the control of set of instructions (called program) and gives the result (output) and saves output for the future use. It can process both numerical and nonnumerical (arithmetic and logical) calculations. The basic components of a modern digital computer are: Input Device, Output Device, Central Processor. A Typical modern computer uses LSI Chips. Charles Babbage is called the "Grand Father" of the computer. The First mechanical computer designed by charles Babbage was called Analytical Engine. It uses read-only memory in the form of punch cards.

Four Functions about computer are:

accepts data
processes data stores results
Input (Data):

Input
Processing Storage

produces output Output

Input is the raw information entered into a computer from the input devices. It is the collection of letters, numbers, images etc.
Process:

Process is the operation of data as per given instruction. It is totally internal process of the computer system.
Output:

Output is the processed data given by computer after data processing. Output is also called as Result. We can save these results in the storage devices for the future use.

Basic Elements of a computer system

Basic elements of a computer system are Mouse, Keyboard, monitor, memory, CPU, motherboard, Hard Disk, Speakers, Modem, power Supply, and processor. Mouse: Mouse is used for operating the system. You can also use computer without mouse, as by using motherboard but in this case it will be very tough to use a computer. These days optical mouse is used because it is very efficient to use as compared to simple mouse.
Keyboard: Keyboard is used to giving input to the system and system gives output to the user. There are many things which we cannot do without keyboard as we cannot write anything without a keyboard. Monitor: Monitor is very essential part of a computer system. It is used to display things which we perform on a computer. Motherboard: Motherboard is also a necessary element of a computer system. It contains different elements as memory, processor, modem, slots for graphic card and LAN card. Memory is sued to run programs on a computer. LAN card is used for making a network between computers.

Hard Disk: Hard disk is used to store data permanently on computer.

Modem: Modem is used to connecting internet. Two types of modems exist. One is known as software modems and other is known as hardware modems. Speakers: Speakers are also included in basis elements of a computer. But it is not necessary as a computer can perform its function without this. However, we use it to for multiple purposes

Types of computers
A computer is one of the most brilliant inventions of mankind. Thanks to computer technology, we were able to achieve storage and processing of huge amounts of data; we could rest our brains by employing computer memory capacities for storage of information. Owing to computers, we have been able speed up daily work, carry out critical transactions and achieve accuracy and precision at work. Computers of the earlier times were of the size of a large room and were required to consume huge amounts of electric power. However, with the advancing technology, computers have shrunk to the size of a small watch. Depending on the processing power and size of computers, they have been classified under various types. Let us look at the classification of computers. Based on the operational principle of computers, they are categorized as analog, digital and hybrid computers.

Operational Principle 1. Analog 2. Digital 3. Hybrid

 Analog Computers: These are almost extinct today. These are different from a digital computer because an analog computer can perform several mathematical operations simultaneously. It uses continuous variables for mathematical operations and utilizes mechanical or electrical energy.
Digital Computers: They use digital circuits and are designed to operate on two states, namely bits 0 and 1. They are analogous to states ON and OFF. Data on these computers is represented as a series of 0s and 1s. Digital computers are suitable for complex computation and have higher processing speeds. They are programmable. Digital computers are either general purpose computers or special purpose ones. General purpose computers, as their name suggests, are designed for specific types of data processing while general purpose computers are meant for general use. Hybrid Computers: These computers are a combination of both digital and analog computers. In this type of computers, the digital segments perform process control by conversion of analog signals to digital ones.

This was the classification of computers based on their style of functioning. Following is a classification of the different types of computers based on their sizes and processing powers.
Processing Power Mainframe Microcomputers

Mainframe Computers: Large organizations use mainframes for highly critical applications such as bulk data processing and ERP. Most of the mainframe computers have capacities to host multiple operating systems and operate as a number of virtual machines. They can substitute for several small servers. Microcomputers: A computer with a microprocessor and its central processing unit is known as a microcomputer. They do not occupy space as much as mainframes do. When supplemented with a keyboard and a mouse, microcomputers can be called personal computers. A monitor, a keyboard and other similar input-output devices, computer memory in the form of RAM and a power supply unit come packaged in a microcomputer. These computers can fit on desks or tables and prove to be the best choice for single-user tasks.

Personal computers come in different forms such as desktops, laptops and personal digital assistants. Let us look at each of these types of computers. Personal Computers
Desktop

Laptop
Netbook PDA Minicomputer Server Supercomputer Wearable Computer

Tablet

Desktops: A desktop is intended to be used on a single location. The spare parts of a desktop computer are readily available at relatively lower costs. Power consumption is not as critical as that in laptops. Desktops are widely popular for daily use in the workplace and households.
Laptops: Similar in operation to desktops, laptop computers are miniaturized and optimized for mobile use. Laptops run on a single battery or an external adapter that charges the computer batteries. They are enabled with an inbuilt keyboard, touch pad acting as a mouse and a liquid crystal display. Their portability and capacity to operate on battery power have proven to be of great help to mobile users. Netbooks: They fall in the category of laptops, but are inexpensive and relatively smaller in size. They had a smaller feature set and lesser capacities in comparison to regular laptops, at the time they came into the market. But with passing time, netbooks too began featuring almost everything that notebooks had. By the end of 2008, netbooks had begun to overtake notebooks in terms of market share and sales.

 Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs): It is a handheld computer

and popularly known as a palmtop. It has a touch screen and a memory card for storage of data. PDAs can also be used as portable audio players, web browsers and smartphones. Most of them can access the Internet by means of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi communication.

Minicomputers: In terms of size and processing capacity, minicomputers lie in between mainframes and microcomputers. Minicomputers are also called mid-range systems or workstations. The term began to be popularly used in the 1960s to refer to relatively smaller third generation computers. They took up the space that would be needed for a refrigerator or two and used transistor and core memory technologies. The 12-bit PDP-8 minicomputer of the Digital Equipment Corporation was the first successful minicomputer.

Servers: They are computers designed to provide services to client machines in a computer network. They have larger storage capacities and powerful processors. Running on them are programs that serve client requests and allocate resources like memory and time to client machines. Usually they are very large in size, as they have large processors and many hard drives. They are designed to be fail-safe and resistant to crash.

 Supercomputers: The highly calculation-intensive tasks can be

effectively performed by means of supercomputers. Quantum physics, mechanics, weather forecasting, molecular theory are best studied by means of supercomputers. Their ability of parallel processing and their well-designed memory hierarchy give the supercomputers, large transaction processing powers.
Wearable Computers: A record-setting step in the evolution of

computers was the creation of wearable computers. These computers can be worn on the body and are often used in the study of behavior modeling and human health. Military and health professionals have incorporated wearable computers into their daily routine, as a part of such studies. When the users' hands and sensory organs are engaged in other activities, wearable computers are of great help in tracking human actions. Wearable computers do not have to be turned on and off and remain in operation without user intervention.
Tablet Computers: Tablets are mobile computers that are very

handy to use. They use the touch screen technology. Tablets come with an onscreen keyboard or use a stylus or a digital pen. Apple's iPad redefined the class of tablet computers.

Components of a Computer System

Computer Systems are made up of: Hardware the physical parts Software - the instructions or programs that control the hardware The Human Being the brains behind the whole system!

Difference between software and hardware

Hardware is the physical piece of equipment sitting on the desk that you can see/touch/feel. Software is the computer programs that operate on the hardware. For instance, the monitor is the hardware, but internet explorer is the software that you see displayed on the monitor. Hardware is the thing you run your computer programs on and software is just a fancy name for those programs you run on your computer. The bottom line is that if you can touch it then it's hardware. The computer program you receive on a CD is not hardware, it's software. Computer programs are software and so it the Operating System (called Windows or Windows Vista for example or for Apple's Mac it's called OS X.) Hardware/Software Hardware is anything HARD, in essence, paper, printers, mice, hard drives, processor fans, monitors, etc. Software is otherwise known as computer programs. Software are the applications such as Internet Explorer. Microsoft Word. Hardware are the components such as Motherboard, RAM, Hard Drive. So if there is NO hardware, there is NO software -- except sitting in a package. Computer hardware is any physical device, something that you are able to touch and software is a collection of instructions and code installed into the computer and cannot be touched. For example, the computer monitor you are using to read this text on and the mouse you are using to navigate this web page is computer hardware.

Block Diagram of Computer

How computers process information?

Computers accept inputs ( i.e. data)
The input is translated into binary numbers and

processed The process produces output (i.e information) This sequence can repeat endlessly: outputs can be inputs!

What do you mean by CPU?

CPU: CPU means central processing unit. The CPU is the brains of the computer. Sometimes referred to simply as the central processor, but more commonly called processor, the CPU is where most calculations take place. In terms of computing power, the CPU is the most important element of a computer system.

Distinguish between bit and byte.

A bit is an acronym for binary digit, which stands for one binary piece of information. This can be either 0 or 1. 1 Byte = 8 Bit 1 kilo Byte (KB) = 1024 Byte 1 Mega Byte (MB) = 1024 Kilo Byte 1 Giga Byte (GB) = 1024 Mega Byte 1 Tera Byte (TB) = 1024 Giga Byte (GB

INPUT OUTPUT DEVICES

Input Devices Input devices are necessary to convert our information or data in to a form which can be understood by the computer.
Keyboard: - This is the standard input device

attached to all computers. The layout of keyboard is just like the traditional typewriter of the type QWERTY. It also contains some extra command keys and function keys. It contains a total of 101 to 104 keys. with your personal computer. It rolls on a small ball and has two or three buttons on the top. When you roll the mouse across a flat surface the screen censors the mouse in the direction of mouse movement. The cursor moves very fast with mouse giving you more freedom to work in any direction. It is easier and faster to move through a mouse. keys provided in it. If we want to input a picture the keyboard cannot do that. Scanner is an optical device that can input any graphical matter and display it back.

Mouse: - Mouse is an input device. That is used

Scanner: The keyboard can input only text through

Output Devices
Visual

Display Unit: The most popular input/output device is the Visual Display Unit (VDU). It is also called the monitor.

Terminals: It is a very popular interactive input-

output unit. It can be divided into two types: hard copy terminals and soft copy terminals. A hard copy terminal provides a printout on paper whereas soft copy terminals provide visual copy on monitor.
Printer: It is an important output device which can

be used to get a printed copy of the processed text or result on paper.

Software
Generic name of all programs
Made up of code interpreted by the hardware Written in programming languages - Java, C, C++,

Perl
Two kinds of Software: System Application

System Software
Concerned with the computer itself: devices, file

and storage management, error correction Main piece of SS: Operating System (OS) OS: the driving program of the computer communicates between all programs and the hardware controls timing and sequence of events manages data to ensure security and integrity Examples: Windows, Mac OS, Unix

Applications Software
Concerned with the world outside the computer Gives the computer its general purpose nature Used for the things you want the computer to do Common Examples - Word, Excel, Internet Explorer Applications can be more specialized: e.g.

Architecture package

Difference between MS-DOS and Windows.

DOS uses CLI (command line interface), whereas

Windows used GUI (graphical user interface).. DOS does not support networking, Windows does.. DOS is a single user OS, Windows is Multiuser.. DOS is a single tasking OS, Windows is Multitasking.. Dos is a single threading OS, Windows is a Multithreading.. DOS supports 2 GB of maximum partition size, Windows supports 2 TB or more.. DOS uses FAT 16 file system, Windows uses FAT 32.. Server administration is not possible in DOS..

Abbreviation of ROM, PROM, EPROM and RAM

ROM is "Read Only Memory" PROM is "Programmable Read Only Memory" RAM is "Random Access Memory"

EPROM is Erasable Programmable Read Only

Memory

What is System bus?

system bus: The bus that connects the CPU to main memory on the motherboard. I/O buses, which connect the CPU with the systems other components, branch off of the system bus.

The system bus is also called the frontside bus, memory bus, local bus, or host bus.

Physical components need to work personal computer

Personal Computer Configuration Now let us identify the physical components that make the computer work. These are Central Processing Unit (CPU) Computer Memory (RAM and ROM) Data bus Ports Motherboard Hard disk Output Devices Input Devices All these components are inter-connected for the personal computer to work

Numeric data, Alpha Numeric data

Numeric data: Numeric data consisting of digits and not letters of the alphabet or special characters. Example: 0, 1, 2....9. Alpha Numeric data: 1. Consisting of both letters and numbers. 2. Consisting of or using letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and mathematical and other conventional symbols: an alphanumeric code.

Abbreviation of ALU, CU, CPU

ALU: Arithmetic Logic Unit CU: Control Unit CPU: Central Processing Unit

difference between RAM and ROM

The memories which are erased if there is a power

failure are known as volatile memories. RAM is an example of volatile memory. The memories, which do not lose their content on failure of power supply, are known as non-volatile memories. ROM is non-volatile memory.

Write the type of topology and describe them

There are four principal topologies used in LANs. bus topology: All devices are connected to a central cable, called the bus or backbone. Bus networks are relatively inexpensive and easy to install for small networks. Ethernet systems use a bus topology. ring topology : All devices are connected to one another in the shape of a closed loop, so that each device is connected directly to two other devices, one on either side of it. Ring topologies are relatively expensive and difficult to install, but they offer high bandwidth and can span large distances. star topology: All devices are connected to a central hub. Star networks are relatively easy to install and manage, but bottlenecks can occur because all data must pass through the hub. tree topology: A tree topology combines characteristics of linear bus and star topologies. It consists of groups of star-configured workstations connected to a linear bus backbone cable. These topologies can also be mixed. For example, a bus-star network consists of a high-bandwidth bus, called the backbone, which connects a collection of slower-bandwidth star segments.

What is TCP/IP?
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is the basic communication language or protocol of the Internet. It can also be used as a communications protocol in a private network (either an intranet or an extranet). When you are set up with direct access to the Internet, your computer is provided with a copy of the TCP/IP program just as every other computer that you may send messages to or get information from also has a copy of TCP/IP.

What do you mean by Shell?

Shell: A shell is a piece of software that provides an interface for users of an operating system which provides access to the services of a kernel. However, the term is also applied very loosely to applications and may include any software that is "built around" a particular component, such as web browsers and email clients that are "shells" for HTML rendering engines. The name shell originates from shells being an outer layer of interface between the user and the internals of the operating system (the kernel).

What do you mean LAN and WAN?

LAN: LAN stands for Local Area Network. This type

of networking system is used to connect the computers over a short range of area the example would be a network inside office, school and home and occasionally between buildings etc. WAN: WAN stand for Wide Area Network. This type of networking system is used to connect the computer over large range of area; the best example could be the internet which connects different computer across the world.

Short not about WWW, HTTP, FTP, Hyperlink

WWW (World Wide Web): The World Wide Web,

abbreviated as WWW and commonly known as the Web, is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them by via hyperlinks. HTTP: (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) The Web's communication standard, referenced in the http:// that appears at the beginning of every web page address (an extra 's' on the end, as in https:// denotes the secure, encrypted form). FTP: File Transfer Protocol. A communications protocol governing the transfer of files from one computer to another over a network Hyperlink: A hyperlink is a word, phrase, or image that you can click on to jump to a new document or a new section within the current document.

Write about function of (DIR, ERASE, DEL, COPY, DATE, TIME, CD, MD, REN, TREE, BACKUP) MS-DOS Command
The functions of DIR--- (list directory) ERASE or DEL ---(erase a file or directory) COPY ---(copy files) DATE ---(display or set date) TIME ---(display or set time) CD --- (change working directory) MD --- (make a directory on the current disk) REN --- (rename a file or directory) TREE --- (Display Directory) BACKUP --- (Makes a backup copy of one or more files)

What is Secondary Storage?

Secondary storage, sometimes called auxiliary

storage, is all data storage that is not currently in a computer's primary storage or memory. An additional synonym is external storage. In a personal computer, secondary storage typically consists of storage on the hard disk and on any removable media, if present, such as a CD or DVD.

What is optical disk drive?

Optical drives retrieve and/or store data on optical

discs like CDs, DVDs, and BDs (Blu-ray discs) which hold much more information than classic portable media options like the floppy disk. The optical disc drive is also known as: optical drive, CD drive, DVD drive, BD drive, disc drive etc.

What is the difference between primary and secondary memory?

Primary memory is faster to access because it is

wired directly to the processor. It is used by the system to perform operations while programs are running. Examples are cache, RAM, and ROM. Content in the primary memory lost once the computer system is turned off. Secondary memory is usually somewhat slower and is used for permanent storage of information. Examples are hard disks, floppy disks, DVDs, flash memory, etc. Content in the secondary memory remains intact even if the computer system is turned off.

What are Serial Ports?

Serial ports are a type of computer interface that complies with the RS-232 standard. They are 9-pin connectors that relay information, incoming or outgoing, one byte at a time. Each byte is broken up into a series of eight bits, hence the term serial port.

What is Parallel Port?

Parallel port: A parallel interface for connecting an external device such as a printer. Most personal computers have both a parallel port and at least one serial port. On PCs, the parallel port uses a 25-pin connector (type DB25) and is used to connect printers, computers and other devices that need relatively high bandwidth. It is often called a Centronics interface after the company that designed the original standard for parallel communication between a computer and printer.