Introduction to Computers

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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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 History of Computer
• First Generation Computers (1940s –
1950s)
• The first general purpose electronic
computer was the ENIAC (Electronic
Numerical Integrator And Computer).

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ENIAC

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 Second Generation
Computers (1955 – 1960)

IBM 1401 5
Third Generation Computers
(1960s)

IBM’s System/360. 6
 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 five general operations, which
comprise the information processing cycle.
1) it accepts data or instructions by way of input,
2) it stores data,
3) it can process data as required by the user,
4) it gives results in the form of output,
5) it controls all operations inside a computer

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Basic computer Operations

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 Data and Information
• 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 computer 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
computer 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.
• Scanner

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 The 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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 The 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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 Scanner
• In computing, an image scanner—often
abbreviated to just scanner—is a device
that optically scans images, printed text,
handwriting, or an object, and converts it
to a digital image.

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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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 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,
pendrives etc

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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 or
more

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 Pen Drive

• A USB flash drive is a data storage device that

includes flash memory with an integrated
Universal Serial Bus(USB) interface. USB flash
drives are typically removable and rewritable,
and physically much smaller than a Floppy disk.
• Most weigh less than 30 g
• As of September 2011 drives of 256 GB are
available

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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 is a widely used graphical
operating system. 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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