What Is a Computer?

 Hardware
 Software
 People
 Procedures
 Data/information
 Connectivity
Computer system characteristics
 Speed
 Accuracy
 Reliability
 Storage capability
 Provides other capabilities
 Intangible benefits.
 Reduced cost
An overview of comp sys
 Data  Computer Hardware
 Collecting  Central processing
 Organizing unit
 Combining  Memory
 Sorting  Input devices
 Manipulating  Output devices
 Summarizing
CPU
 ALU- All arithematic calculations are done
here
 Memory Unit – stores intermediate and
final results and also the instructions
 Control Unit
Memory
 Primary memory- also called RAM keeps
currently reqd data
 Secondary memory- Are all those exteranl
storage devices as well as hard disk which
store large volumes of data and can be
retrieved when reqd.
Primary Memory
 RAM
 Earlier version only 64 KB
 Latest is upto 48 MB
 To upgrade our existing system we can
add on memory board plugged into our
system
contd……
ROM
 Read only memory
 TO be performed when the computer is
put on
 Three types
 PROM
 EPROM
 EEPROM
PROCESSING POWER OF A
COMPUTER
 DEPENDS ON
 Addressing scheme- Larger the better
 Data bus – larger the better
 Clock speed- faster the better
 Instruction- powerful the better
 Register size- larger the better
Input devices
 Keyboard MICR
 Punched cards OCR
 Paper tape Mouse
 Magnetic tape Touch sensitive screens
 Disk
 Light pen
 Optical scanners let us explore…….
keyboard
 Sophisticated electromechanical
component
 Standard keys as in typewriters
 Function keys
 Special purpose keys
 Cursor movement keys
 Numeric keys
Mouse
 Hand held device
 Which takes the option from the user as
soon as he clicks on one of the options
 Other pointing devices are light pen, touch
screen, digitizers.
Floppy disk
 A special plastic coated and easily
magnetised
 It has fouropenings:- hub,data access
area,
write protect notch, index hole.
………technically speaking
Hard disk
 Stack of disks
 Same mechanism as floppy disk
 Made of rough material can store more
volume of data
technical walk thru…….
Cartridge tape
 Mainly used for backup-
 If incase the hard disk crashes
 It comes as 10 MB – 120 MB
 Can copy 20 MB hard disk in 5- 20
minutes.
CD- ROM
Compact disc read only memory
Advantages
compact
Vast storage capacity
Reliable
Durable
A 12 cm cd rom can store 660 MB data…..go
techy
Output Devices
 Monitor
 Printers
 Graphics plotter
 Speech synthesizer
Monitor
 CRT- cathode ray tube
 Flat screen technology
 Two types --
LCD
Electro luminescent display
printers
 Impact printers
 Letter quality printers
 Dot-matrix printers
 High speed non-impact printers
Ink jet
Laser
Adv
limitations
plotters
Used for high quality graphics
Three types
Drum plotters
Flat bed plotters
Electrostatic patterns
SOFTWARE
 System S/W
 Application S/W
System software
 System control S/W
 System support S/w
 System development S/w
System control S/w
Operating System
Or
OS
Operating system
 MS-dos
 Windows NT
 Unix
 OS/2
Dos
 Disk operating system

 1980 for pc’s

 Based on disk

Some commands
FORMAT DSKCPY DEL etc.
Booting how it works
 It works in three stages
 Boot
 Startup

 Get the rest of DOS

DOS commands
 DOS has two types of commands
 Internal
 External

 Some very useful commands are

DATE TIME DEL REN etc…they are internal

commands
External commands
 FORMAT
 DSKCPY
 CKHDSK
FILES
 FILES ARE STORED IN DOS BY GIVING
UNIQUE NAME TO THEM
 NAME HAS TWO PARTS
 The first part can be upto eight charcaters
 And the second part denotes the type of
the file and is upto three cahcarters
 Both separated by . Eg. Name.txt
DOS
Master boot
record at cyl
0,sector 1

Extended
dos part
drive D
Primary
dos
partition
drive c