Chapter 1:
Computer System
» Introduction to Computer System
» Evolution of Computer
» Computer Memory
» Software
Proprietary or Free and Open Source
Software:
Developers of some software allow public to freely use their software
along with source code with an aim to improve further with each other’s
help. Such software is known as Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).
For example, the source code of operating system Ubuntu is freely
accessible for anyone with the required knowledge to improve/add new
functionality. More examples of FOSS include Python, Libreoffice,
Openoffice, Mozilla Firefox, etc.
Sometimes, software are freely available for use but source code may
not be available. Such software is called freeware. Examples of freeware
are Skype, Adobe Reader etc.
When software to be used has to be purchased from the vendor who has
the copyright of the software, then it is a proprietary software. Examples
of proprietary software include Microsoft Windows, Tally, Quickheal etc.
Firmware:
Firmware is data that is stored on a computer or other hardware
device's ROM (read-only memory) that provides instruction on how
that device should operate. Unlike normal software, firmware cannot
be changed or deleted by an end-user without using special
programs, and remains on that device whether it's on or off.(BIOS-
Basic Input Output System)
Data need to be transferred between the CPU and primary memory
as well as between the primary and secondary memory.
Data are transferred between different components of a computer
system using physical wires called bus.
For example, bus is used for data transfer between a USB port and
hard disk or between a hard disk and main memory.
Bus is of three types—
(i) Data bus to transfer data between different components,
(ii) Address bus to transfer addresses between CPU and main
memory. The address of the memory location that the CPU wants to
read or write from is specified in the address bus.
(iii) Control bus to communicate control signals between different
components of a computer.
Data and Its Types
A computer system has many input devices, which provide it with raw
data in the form of facts, concepts, instructions, etc., Internally
everything is stored in binary form (0 and 1), but externally, data can
be input to a computer in the text form consisting of English
alphabets A–Z, a–z, numerals 0–9, and special symbols like @, #, etc.
Primarily, there are three types of data.
A) Structured Data :
Data which follows a strict record structure and is easy to
comprehend is called structured data. Such data with pre-specified
tabular format may be stored in a data file to access in the future.
It is clear that such data is organised in row/column format and is
easily understandable. Structured data may be sorted in ascending or
descending order.
(B) Unstructured Data:
Data which are not organized in a pre-defined record format is called
unstructured data. Examples include audio and video files, graphics,
text documents, social media posts, satellite images, etc.
(C) Semi-structured Data:
Data which have no well-defined structure but maintains internal
tags or markings to separate data elements are called semi-
structured data. Examples include email document, HTML page,
comma separated values (csv file), etc.
Data Capturing, Storage and
Retrieval
To process data, we need to first input or capture the data. This is
followed by its storage in a file or a database so that it can be used in
the future. Whenever data is to be processed, it is first retrieved from
the file or database so that we can perform further actions on it.
(A) Data Capturing It involves the process of gathering data from
different sources in the digital form. This capturing may vary from
simple instruments like keyboard, barcode readers used at shopping
outlets, comments or posts over social media, remote sensors on an
earth orbiting satellite, etc.
(B) Data Storage It is the process of storing the captured data for
processing later. Now-a-days data is being produced at a very high
rate, and therefore data storage has become a challenging task.
However, the decrease in the cost of digital storage devices has
helped in simplifying this task.
(C) Data Retrieval It involves fetching data from the storage devices,
for its processing as per the user requirement. As databases grow,
the challenges involved in search and retrieval of the data in
acceptable time, also increase. Minimizing data access time is crucial
Data Deletion and Recovery
One of the biggest threats associated with digital data is its deletion.
The storage devices can malfunction or crash down resulting in the deletion of data stored.
Users can accidentally erase data from storage devices, or a hacker or malware can delete
the digital data intentionally.
Deleting digitally stored data means changing the details of data at bit level, which can be
very time consuming. Therefore, when any data is simply deleted, its address entry is
marked as free, and that much space is shown as empty to the user, without actually
deleting the data.
In case data gets deleted accidentally or corrupted, there arises a need to recover the data.
Recovery of the data is possible only if the contents or memory space marked as deleted
have not been overwritten by some other data. Data recovery is a process of retrieving
deleted, corrupted and lost data from secondary storage devices
There are usually two security concerns associated with data. One is its deletion by some
unauthorized person or software. These concerns can be avoided by limiting access to the
computer system and using passwords for user accounts and files, wherever possible.
There is also an option of encrypting files to protect them from unwanted modification.
The other concern is related to unwanted recovery of data by unauthorized user or
software. Many a times, we discard our old, broken or malfunctioning storage devices
without taking care to delete data. We assume that the contents of deleted files are
permanently removed. However, if these storage devices fall into the hands of mischief-
mongers, they can easily recover data from such devices; this poses a threat to data
confidentiality.
