Computer Basic

Structure

SHAHABUDDIN
MS Scholar, Department of Computer Science, University of Peshawar
BASIC STRUCTURE

The computer receives input, processes it and delivers

output.

To perform these tasks it has different units, and

each unit is responsible for a specific task.

The units are INPUT, MEMORY, CONTROL UNIT (CU),

ARITHMETIC & LOGIC UNIT (ALU) AND OUTPUT.

The CU and ALU together are called CENTRAL

PROCESSING UNIT (CPU).
Block Diagram of
Computer
 I/O DEVICES

INPUT DEVICE
• It is used for transferring data from the users’ end to the computer.

OUTPUT DEVICE
• It is used to transfer processed information from the computer to the user in
a way required by the user.
 STORAGE UNIT
PRIMARY MEMORY
• It is the Main Memory of the computer where the currently processing data or information resides for
faster access.
• It is volatile by its nature, which means data in this memory is stored temporarily, and it does not retain
data during a power outage.
• It uses semiconductor chip technology, which has a minimum capacity of storage and quickly accesses
the Memory by utilizing the CPU. It is also expensive.
SECONDARY MEMORY
• Secondary Memory is an auxiliary or external memory of the computer. All storage devices such as
hard disk, optical disk, compact disk, flash drives, magnetic tapes, etc. which have high-storage
capacities are known as Secondary memory.
• The Central Processing Unit cannot directly access the data in secondary memory. As it requires the
data to be initially copied to primary memory to be processed by CPU, this makes accessing data
from secondary memory to become slower.
• The secondary memory uses the input-output channels to access the data, making it non-volatile,
i.e. the content of the secondary memory exists even in the absence of power.
ARITHMETIC LOGICAL UNIT LOGICAL UNIT:
After you enter data through the input device it is stored in the primary storage unit. The actual processing
of the data and instruction are performed by arithmetic Logical Unit. After processing the output is
returned to storage unit for further processing or getting stored.

CONTROL UNIT:
Acts like the supervisor seeing that things are done in proper fashion. Control Unit is responsible for
coordinating various operations.

CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT(CPU):

The ALU and the CU of a computer system are jointly known as the central processing unit. You may
call CPU as the brain of any computer system.
 DATA & INFORMATION
DATA is described as some FACTS, FIGURES and STATISTICS about a particular instance.

For example : MARKS in individual subjects.

INFORMATION is some FACTS, FIGURES and STATISTICS which help us in decision making.
Generally information is the result of data processing.

For example : PERCENTAGE & GRADE.

 DATA REPRESENTATION WITHIN A
COMPUTER

CHARACTER :
• A character is the smallest amount of information that can be communicated to the computer. All data,
information and instruction are represented by a combination of these characters.

• All alphabets, digits and symbols are characters. Even a blank space is a character.
 How does the computer understand a
character?

Computer being an electronic device, can represent only two states – VOLTAGE and NO VOLTAGE.

Voltage is represented as 1
No voltage is represented as 0
 How does the computer understand a
character?
A series of such 0s and 1s form a pattern.

1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
Such a pattern represents a CHARACTER.
For each character, a separate pattern is there within the computer.
 How does the computer understand a
character?
There are eight such positions to represent 0 or 1 and each such position is called a BIT. Hence the
pattern generated to represent a character is a BIT PATTERN.

BIT

1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
Two digits, 0 and 1 can generate 256 unique combinations if represented in eight places. Hence, we can
represent 256 different characters in any computer.
 ASCII
American Standard Code for Information
Interchange.

It is difficult for us to remember all the 256-bit patterns and their corresponding characters.
Hence, we can convert the bit pattern to a decimal number. This way each bit pattern will have a
different number and this number, fixed for a character is called the ASCII code of the character.
All computers follow the same ASCII code and bit pattern to represent characters.
 BINARY
• The number system involving two digits, 0 & 1 is called BINARY.
• By using this system a bit pattern (treated as a binary number) can be converted to the decimal
number system.
• Starting from right to left, raise 2 to the power of 0 to 7.
• Add the values corresponding to the BIT positions having the value 1.

0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
32 16 8 1

= 57
 BINARY
1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
128 32 16 8 1
0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1
= 185 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
32 8 1

= 41
BIT PATTERN ASCII CODE CHARACTER

01000001 65 A
01100001 97 a
00110001 49 1
00101011 43 +
00100000 32
00101101 45 -
00011100 28 (
00101100 44 ,