Managerial Computing

.
UTKAL UNIVERSITY

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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 Speake
(output r
) System unit
(output
(processor,
)
memory…)
Printer
(output
)

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

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Cont…

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Basic computer
organization

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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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 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 by
using function associated with output requirement .
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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 Characteristic of computer?
 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.
 Diligence
 Speed
 Versatility
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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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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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Light pen

Coiled cable connects pen to c.r.t (cathode ray tube ). In

operation, pen held to screen and detects burst of light from
screen phosphor during display scan.

Direct pointing device: accurate (can address individual

pixels), so can be used for fine selection and drawing.

Problems: pen can obscure display, is fragile, can be lost on a

busy desk, tiring on the arm.

Both much less popular than the mouse

 Other text entry devices
Handwriting recognition

Handwritten text can be input into the computer, using a pen

and a digesting tablet

• common form of interaction

Problems in

• capturing all useful information - stroke path, pressure, etc. in

a natural manner
• segmenting joined up writing into individual letters
• interpreting individual letters
• coping with different styles of handwriting

Handheld organisers being released now that incorporate

handwriting recognition technology and do away with a bulky
keyboard
Touch-sensitive screen (touch screens)

Detect the presence of finger or stylus on the screen. Work by

interrupting matrix of light beams or by capacitance changes or
ultrasonic reflections. Direct pointing devices.

Advantages: Fast, and require no specialized pointer. Good for

menu selection. Suitable for use in hostile environment: clean
and safe from damage.

Disadvantages: Finger can mark screen. Imprecise (finger is a

fairly blunt instrument!) - difficult to select small regions or
perform accurate drawing. Lifting arm can be tiring, and can
make screen too close for easy viewing.
Speech recognition

Promising, but only successful in limited situations - single

user, limited vocabulary systems

Problems with

• external noise interfering

• imprecision of pronunciation
 Positioning and Pointing Devices
Mouse Handheld pointing device

• very common
• easy to use
Two characteristics
• planar movement
• buttons (usually from 1 to 3 buttons on top, used for making a
selection, indicating an option, or to initiate drawing etc.)
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 Scanners and Optical Character Recognition

Scanners take paper and convert it into a bitmap

Two sorts of scanner

• flat-bed: paper placed on a glass plate, whole page converted

into bitmap

• hand-held: scanner passed over paper, digitising strip

typically 3-4” wide

Can work in colour: shine light at paper and note intensity of

reflection.
Resolutions from 300-600 dpi, but available up to 4800 dpi.

Also special scanners for slides and photographic negatives

Scanners cont

Used in
• desktop publishing for incorporating photographs and
other images
• used in document storage and retrieval systems,
doing away with paper storage

Optical character recognition (OCR) converts bitmap

back into text
• different fonts create problems for simple “template
matching”
algorithms
• more complex systems segment text, decompose it
into lines
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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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Short Review

Computer System Components

Central Processing Unit

Control
Input ALU Output
Unit
Devices Devices

Special
Cache Primary
Purpose
MemoryStorage
Processors

Secondary
Storage
Devices

Communication Devices
 Computer Memory
 The main function of computer memory is to store software.
 Computer memory is divided into primary memory and
secondary memory.
 Primary memory is divided into random access memory
(RAM) and read-only memory (ROM):

RAM holds the programs and data that the processor is
actively working with.

ROM contains software that is used in Input/Output
operations. It also contains software that loads the
Operating System in Primary Memory.

The CPU can read and write to RAM but it can only read
from ROM.

RAM is volatile while ROM is not.
 Secondary memory is used for long-term storage of programs
and data.
 Examples of secondary memory devices are: hard disks,

floppy disks and CD ROMs.

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 Primary Memory
Primary memory is divided into a number of
memory cells (bits) or bytes.
A bit (binary digit) is the smallest storage unit within a computer.
It is a tiny electrical circuit that can be in one of two states:
 A voltage high represented by the symbol 1
 A voltage low represented by the symbol 0

 Any system of symbols can be represented by bit or byte patterns.

Each byte has a unique integer address and it is usually 8 bits.

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 Primary Memory
UNIT SYMBOL POWER Number of bytes
OF 2

Byte 0 1
2

Kilobyte KB 10 1,024
2
Megabyte MB 20 1,048,576
2
Gigabyte GB 30 1,073,741,824
2
Terabyte TB 40 1,099,511,627,776
2

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Primary and Secondary Memory
Comparison

Primary memory Secondary memory

Fast Slow
Expensive Cheap
Low capacity Large capacity
Connects directly to Not connected directly
the processor to the processor

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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. 29
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. 30
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 is a widely
used graphical operating system. DOS
(Disk Operating System) is an older but
still widely used operating system that 39
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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