BASIC COMPUTER OPERATIONS

BASIC COMPUTER OPERATIONS
I. A Computer
Computer is an electronic device. As mentioned in lecture one, it can do arithmetic calculations faster. But as you will see later it does much more than that. It can be compared to a magic box, which serves different purpose to different people. For a common man computer is simply a calculator, which works automatic and quite fast. For a person who knows much about it, computer is a machine capable of solving problems and manipulating data. It accepts data, processes the data by doing some mathematical and logical operations and gives us the desired output.
Therefore, we may define computer as a device that transforms data. Data can be anything like marks obtained by you in various subjects. It can also be name, age, sex, weight, height, etc. of all the students in your class or income, savings, investments, etc., of a country. Computer can be defined in terms of its functions. It can i) accept data ii) store data, iii) process data as desired, and iv) retrieve the stored data as and when required and v) print the result in desired format. You will know more about these functions as you go through the later lessons.
II. Functionalities of a Computer
If we look at it in a very broad sense, any digital computer carries out the following five functions:
Step 1 ? Takes data as input.
Step 2 ? Stores the data/instructions in its memory and uses them as required.
Step 3 ? Processes the data and converts it into useful information.
Step 4 ? Generates the output.
Step 5 ? Controls all the above four steps.