Computer Fundamentals
@ 2024 Dr. Samik Marick
Table of •
Contents
2
Characteristics of Computers
(a) Speed—It has fast speed operation of several million operations per second.
(b) Accuracy—It is capable of performing calculations to the extent of 64
decimal accuracy.
(c) Storage—It is capable of storing large volumes of information.
(d) Decision making—It is capable of decision making according to the
supplied information.
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Digital Computer components
Digital computers (or simply computers) perform
the calculations on numerical or digital values.
Digital computers use the binary number system,
which has two digits: 0 and 1.
The computer system consists of three main
components (a) Hardware
The hardware are physical devices attached
with the computer such as central processing
unit (CPU), keyboard, monitor, disk drive,
printer and other peripherals.
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Digital Computer components
(b) Software consists of the instructions and data that the computers manipulate to perform
various tasks. A sequence of instructions is called a program.
Generally, software can be either application software or system software.
Application software is a program or collection of programs used to solve a particular
application-oriented problem. Examples include editor program, real player, and railway reservation
program.
System software is a program used to manage the entire system and to help in executing various
application programs. Operating systems, compilers and device drivers are some of the system
software’s examples.
System-programs are generally machine dependent and is not concerned with specific application
program.
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Digital Computer components
(c) Human resources
It is a manpower and skilled personal ( programmers ) available to perform the
operation on computer systems.
The interface among these three components of a computer system is shown below.
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LAYERS IN A COMPUTER SYSTEM
A computer system can be viewed as a collection of different layers,
as shown aside.
The innermost layer is the hardware part that consists of central
processing unit (CPU), main memory, input/output (I/O) devices,
secondary storage, etc.
A programmer writes an application program in a high level
language using decimal numbers and English-like statements.
A compiler is a system program, which converts the high-level
language program into equivalent machine language program
consisting of instructions of binary numbers.
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LAYERS IN A COMPUTER SYSTEM
An operating system (OS) is a set of programs and utilities, which
acts as the interface between user programs and computer hardware.
The following are the main functions of operating system:
1. Managing the user’s programs.
2. Managing the memories of computer.
3. Managing the I/O operations.
4. Controlling the security of computer.
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TYPES OF COMPUTERS
Digital computers can be categorized into four different types, based on the
computers’ performance, size and cost.
They are: mainframe computers, minicomputers, microcomputers and
supercomputers.
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TYPES OF COMPUTERS
Mainframe computer: It is a large computer system consisting of thousands of
ICs, which is physically distributed in more than one place.
This computer is designed for intensive computational tasks and used by large
organizations like banks, railways and hospitals.
Mainframe computer is often shared by multiple users connected to the computer
through several terminals.
This computer is very expensive.
Examples include IBM system/360, Burroughs B 5000 and UNIVAC 1100/2200
series.
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TYPES OF COMPUTERS
Minicomputer: This class of computers is smaller and slower version of
mainframe computer.
Its cost is very less compared to the mainframe computer.
This machine is designed to serve multiple users simultaneously and used by
smaller organizations and research centres.
Computers like DEC’s PDP, HP 3000 series and CDC 1700 are minicomputers.
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TYPES OF COMPUTERS
Microcomputer: Invention of microprocessor (CPU on a chip) gives rise to the
microcomputer.
This is small, low-cost and single user machine. It is also called personal computer
(PC). This inexpensive computer is designed to use on a small desk or even to carry.
This class of computers is very popular, due to its high performance per cost ratio
and size.
The more powerful microcomputer designed to perform scientific applications is
called workstation.
IBM PC series based on Intel’s 80x86 family, Apple’s Macintosh and Motorola’s
680x0 family are examples of microcomputers.
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TYPES OF COMPUTERS
Supercomputer: This class of computers is the most powerful and expensive
computer available today.
This computer is design to perform fast using multiprocessing and parallel
processing techniques.
This machine is specially used for complex scientific applications, like weather
forecasting, satellite launching, climate research and nuclear research.
Popular supercomputers are Cray-1, Power-PC and Fujitsu’s VP 200.
An important point to be noted that today’s supercomputer tends to become
tomorrow’s normal computer.
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IAS Computer/ Von-Neumann Computer
In 1946, Von Neumann and his colleagues began the design of a new stored-
program computer, now referred to as the IAS computer, at the Institute for
Advanced Studies, Princeton.
Nearly, all modern computers still use this stored-program concept.
This concept has three main principles:
1. Program and data can be stored in the same memory.
2. The computer executes the program in sequence as directed by the
instructions in the program.
3. A program can modify itself when the computer executes the program.
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Von-Neumann Bottleneck
One of the major factors contributing for a computer’s performance is the time
required to move instructions and data between the CPU and main memory.
The CPU has to wait longer to obtain a data-word from the memory than from its
registers, because the registers are very fast and are logically placed inside the
processor (CPU).
This CPU-memory speed disparity is referred to as Von-Neumann bottleneck.
This performance problem is reduced by using a special type memory called cache
memory between the CPU and main memory.
The speed of cache memory is almost same as the CPU, for which there is almost
no waiting time of the CPU for the required data word to come.
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Von-Neumann Bottleneck
Another way to reduce the problem is by using special type computers known
as Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC).
This class of computers generally uses a large number of registers, through which
the most of the instructions are executed.
This computer usually limits access to main memory to a few load and store
instructions.
This architecture is designed to reduce the impact of the bottleneck by reducing
the total number of the memory accesses made by the CPU and by increasing the
number of register accesses.
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