Chapter Two

Organization of a Computer System

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Computer system

Contains many electric, electronic, and mechanical components

known as hardware

Work in a coordination fashion to achieve some objective

All types of computers follow the same basic logical structure

Perform the following five basic operations

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Computer Hardware

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 Computer Hardware

 Physical part of the computer

 Composed of a number of interacting

physical parts

Based on the need of the information flow

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Information flow in the computer hardware

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Examples of Hardware

Input devices - keyboard, mouse, etc.

Output devices - printer, monitor, etc.

Secondary storage devices - Hard disk, CD, DVD, etc.

Internal components - CPU, motherboard, RAM, etc.

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 Central Processing Unit (CPU)
 Considered as the brain of the computer

 Performs all types of data processing operations

 Stores data, intermediate results, and instructions

 Controls the operation of all parts of the computer

 Has following three components

Memory or Storage Unit, Control Unit and ALU

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Memory or Storage Unit
 Store instructions, data, and intermediate results
 Supplies information to other units
 All inputs and outputs are transmitted through the main memory

Control Unit
 Controls the operations of all parts of the computer
 Responsible for controlling the transfer of data and instructions
 Manages and coordinates all the units
 Communicates with input/output devices for transfer of data

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ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit)

 Arithmetic Section

Perform arithmetic operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication,

and division

 Logic Section

Perform logic operations such as comparing, selecting, matching, and

merging of data

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Main Memory or Primary Memory or RAM

 Holds data and instructions on which the

computer is currently working

 has a limited capacity and data is lost when

power is switched off

 made up of semiconductor device

 Data and instruction required to be processed

resides in the main memory

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Characteristics of Main Memory

 It is semiconductor memories

 Usually volatile memory

 Data is lost in case power is switched off

 It is the working memory of the computer

 Faster than secondary memories

 A computer cannot run without the primary memory 12

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Hard disk
 External memory or non-volatile
 Slower than the main memory
 Used for storing data/information permanently
 CPU directly does not access these memories,
instead they are accessed via input-output
routines
 Contents of secondary memories are first
transferred to the main memory, and then the
CPU can access it

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 Interconnecting components
 To perform a given task in synchronized form there should be some
mechanism of communication
 Electronic circuit which produces communication path between the different
components of a computer system
 This path is called bus

Internal bus

Communicates the different parts of the CPU

External bus

Communicates the CPU with memory and peripheral devices

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 Input Unit
important input devices which are used in a computer are
Keyboard
Mouse
Joy Stick
Light pen
Track Ball
Scanner
Graphic Tablet
Microphone
Magnetic Ink Card Reader (MICR)
Optical Character Reader (OCR)
Bar Code Reader
Optical Mark Reader (OMR)

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Keyboard

Helps to input data to the computer

keys are used to perform different

functions

The keys on the keyboard are as follows

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Mouse

 Pointing device

 Used to control the position of the cursor

on the screen

 Has two buttons called the left and the

right button

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Joystick

 Pointing device

 used to move the cursor position on a

monitor screen

 Mainly used in Computer Aided

Designing (CAD) and playing computer
games

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Light Pen

 Pointing device similar to a pen

 Used to select a displayed menu item

or draw pictures on the monitor screen

 Consists of a photocell and an optical

system placed in a small tube

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Track Ball

 Mostly used in notebook or laptop

computer, instead of a mouse

 A ball which is half inserted

 By moving fingers on the ball the pointer

can be moved

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Scanner

 used to transfer information in to hard disk of

the computer for further manipulation

 captures images from the source which are

then converted into a digital form

 It can be stored on the disk

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Digitizer
 Converts analog information into digital
form
 Used by the computer to create a
picture of whatever the camera had
been pointed at
 Converts graphics and pictorial data
into binary inputs
 Used for fine works of drawing and
image manipulation applications
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Microphone

 Input sound that is then stored in a

digital form

 Used for various applications such as

Adding sound to a multimedia

presentation
For mixing music

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Magnetic Ink Card Reader (MICR)

 Used in banks as there are large number of

cheques to be processed every day

 Bank's code number and cheque number

are printed on the cheques with a special
type of ink
 Main advantages of MICR is that it is fast
and less error prone

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Optical Character Reader (OCR)

 Used to read a printed text

 Scans the text optically, character by

character

 Converts them into a machine readable

code

 Stores the text on the system memory

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Bar Code Readers

 Used for reading bar coded data (data in the form of

light and dark lines)

 Bar coded data is generally used in labelling goods,

numbering the books

 Scans a bar code image

 Converts it into an alphanumeric value

 Fed to the computer that the bar code reader is

connected to

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 Output unit

Important output devices used in a computer are:-

Monitors

Graphic Plotter

Printer

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Monitors (Visual Display Unit)

 Forms images from tiny dots, called pixels that are arranged in a

rectangular form

 Two kinds of viewing screen used for monitors.

Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT)

Flat-Panel Display

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Cathode-Ray Tube (CRT) Monitor
 CRT display is made up of small picture elements
called pixels
 takes more than one illuminated pixel to form a
whole character
 finite number of characters can be displayed on a
screen at once
 disadvantages of CRT:
Large in Size, High power consumption

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Flat-panel display monitor

 Have reduced volume, weight and power
requirement in comparison to the CRT
 Uses of flat-panel displays include
Calculators
Video game
Monitors
Laptop computer
Graphics display

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Printers
 Output device, which is used to
print information on paper

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Computer Software

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 Software is a set of programs, designed to perform a well-defined function

 A program is a sequence of instructions written to solve a particular problem

 Software makes the interface between the user and the electronic components of

the computer

 There are two types of software:-

System Software

Application Software

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System software
 Collection of programs designed to
Operate
Control
Extend the processing capabilities of the computer itself
 Generally prepared by the computer manufacturers
 Comprise of programs written in low-level languages
 Serves as the interface between the hardware and the end users
 Example:- operating system, compilers, interpreter, assemblers, etc.
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 Features of a system software
Close to the system
Fast in speed
Difficult to design
Difficult to understand
Less interactive
Smaller in size
Difficult to manipulate
Generally written in low-level language

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Language Software

 software which is used by programmers to develop application software’s

 serve as editors & translators to develop programs in a number of

programming languages

 Translator:- a program that converts one or more languages to another

language

Assemblers

Translates assembly languages into machine code

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Compiler

Translates a high level language into machine code

Interpreter

Translates each instruction of high level language & executes the

instruction before translating the next instruction

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Application Software
 Products are designed to satisfy a particular need of a particular environment
 Software applications prepared in the computer lab can come under the category
of application software
 Examples
Student record software
Inventory management software
Microsoft office suite software
Microsoft word
Microsoft PowerPoint
Database management system
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 Features of application software are

Close to the user

Easy to design

More interactive

Slow in speed

Generally written in high-level language

Easy to understand

Easy to manipulate and use

Bigger in size and requires large storage space

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