CS1FC16 INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SYSTEMS

What is Computer Science?

Computer Science is the study of principles, applications, and technologies of computing and computers.
It involves the study of data, data structures and the algorithms to process them.

Seven big ideas of computer science

 Algorithms – bringing real life problems to machine level

 Abstraction –breaking something down to machine level
 Programming
 Creativity
 Data
 Internet
 Impact – technology is present in all aspects of life

A computer system includes software hardware and peripheral devices

A stand-alone computer system consists of:

 Input and output devices

 Processor
 Storage system

Components of a computer system:

 Hardware – provides physical mechanism to input and output data, for manipulating data and
electronically controlling input, output and storage
 Software(system software + application software) - provides instructions that tell the hardware
what tasks to perform and in what order
 Data – may be of various form (numeric, graphic, text) but in all cases must be in the form that
the computer can manipulate – binary
 Communication component(for interconnected systems) - hardware and software that
transports programs and data between interconnected computer systems.

Hardware components
 Central Processing Unit(CPU) - a composition of three primary subunits:
o Arithmetic/logic unit(ALU) - performs arithmetic and Boolean calculations
o Control unit – controls the processing of instructions and the movement of internal CPU
data from one register to another
 Register – a small storage space for data used in the current process
o Interface unit – moves instructions and data between CPU and other hardware
components
 Mass Storage – hard drive, flash drives, CDs, DVDs and so on. The advantages of mass storage
systems over main memory include less volatility, large storage capacities, low cost, and in many
 cases, the ability to remove the storage medium from the machine for archival purposes. A
major disadvantage of magnetic and optical mass storage systems is that they typically require
mechanical motion and therefore require significantly more time to store and retrieve data than
a machine’s main memory, where all activities are performed electronically.
 Input devices – keyboard, mouse
 Output devices – monitor, printer, speakers
 Buses – physical connection that makes it possible to transfer data from one location in the
computer to another
 Internal memory:
o Random access memory(RAM) - computer's main memory, organized as individual,
addressable cells. In contrast to mass storage, the cells in RAM can be accessed
independently as required
o Read only memory(ROM) - constructed from special, non-volatile memory cells, this
memory can be accessed but not altered

Software components
 System software – operating system, controls the overall operation of the computer and
performs those tasks that are common to computer systems in general provides the
infrastructure that the application software requires
 Application software – all types of software programs that perform specific tasks

Software programs can be written in a high level language such as C, C++, Java. However, in order to be
executable, they need to be converted to machine understandable instructions.

Apart from high level programming languages, computer scientists can also use assembly language – a
low level programming language with a very strong correspondence to the machine code's instructions.
Each assembly code corresponds to a machine instruction with information of operation, operand and
addressing mode.

There is a mutual dependence between software and hardware. In order for a computer system to
work, hardware and software must work together. Software provides instructions to tell hardware what
to do. Hardware takes the instructions and carries out tasks.

Data (3rd component) - information in the computer system (for information representation see next
topic)

Communication (4th component) - almost all machines are interconnected nowadays, therefore
communications becomes the fourth component. There are portions of hardware and software
dedicated to computer networking.

 A network card physically connects a computer to the network, either through wire or wireless
connection.
 A communication protocol is a piece of software used to implement communication.

Interconnected computer systems

Interconnected computer systems make up a computer network.

 A famous computer network is the Internet – global system of interconnected computer

networks using the standard TCP/IP communication protocol.
 There are various computer networks, for example LAN – local area network

Information security – an issue of growing importance

Information security is concerned with protection of information and information systems from
unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification or destruction.

Data security – protecting data storage where the data resides

Network security – in a network, information passes between machines – it is important to

secure the network and communication protocol.

Computer security – a reference monitor in the operating system manages the security of its
elements.

Application security – concerned with security issues in the development cycle of an application