Hardware and Software

A computer system consists of two parts.

1. Hardware 2. Software.
1. Hardware
Hardware is the physical components of the computer, they are the tangible parts that we
can touch and see.
Eg. : Keyboard, Mouse, Screen, Printer, CPU, Memory chips, Hard disk etc.
2. Software
Software means programs. They are intangible things. Hardware cannot work without
software. Each program is a set of instructions that makes the hardware to do work.
Types of Software
Mainly there are two types of softwares.
 System Software.
 Application Software.
System Software
It is the main software that is designed to run a computer's hardware and application
programs. The system software is the interface between the hardware and user
applications. The Operating System is the main part of system software.
Operating System
It is the master control program that controls and co-ordinates all the operations of the
computer. It manages all the other programs in a computer.
Example :
MS DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), Windows, Unix, Linux, etc.
Application Software
Software do a particular job. The different software used in business, bank and online
business are examples of application software.
Example : Software used in a bank, in railway reservation system, super market etc.
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop, Tally etc are also examples of application
software, developed by professional software development companies, and are used by a
very large number of people all over the world.

Number Systems
Number systems are classified into:
1. Positional Number System
2. Non-Positional Number System

Non – Positional Systems:

In a non-positional number system, each symbol represents the same value regardless of its position in
the number. To find the value of a number, one has to count the number of symbols present in the number.
E.g. IIIII indicates 5.
Positional Number Systems:
In positional number system there exist few symbols called digits. These digits represent different values
depending on the position they occupy in number. The value in each digit is determined by three
considerations
1. Digit itself
2. Position of digit in number
3. Base of the number system
BASE of a NUMBER system
In a positional number system, the base(also called radix)is the number of unique digits, including the
digit zero, used to represent numbers. For example, for the decimal the base is ten, because it uses the
ten digits from 0 through 9.
 Base for decimal=10
 Base for hexadecimal= 16
 Base for binary= 2
 Base for octal= 8
In our day-to-day life , we use the decimal number system.
Decimal Number System:
The number system we use in our day to day life is called the “Decimal Number System”, the base is equal
to ten as is contains 10 symbols i.e. 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
“In all number systems the first digit is zero”
“In all number system maximum value of digit is one less than the value of base”
 Successive position to the left of decimal point represent units, tens, hundred, thousands etc
 Each position represents a successive power of base – 10
e.g. 2586 or (2586)10 means 6 is in unit position, 8 in tens, 5 in hundreds and 2 in thousands “OR”
(2x1000)+(5x100)+(8x10)+(6x1) =2000+500+80+6=2586
 Digits signifies different values depending on position it occupies in number
e.g. in (2586)10
6 signifies 6 x 100 = 6x1= 6
8 signifies 8 x 101 = 8x10 = 80
5 signifies 5 x 102 = 5x100 = 500
2 signifies 2 x 103 = 2x1000 = 2000
Total them up and 6+80+500+2000 = 2586
Binary Number System:
 Base 2 Number System
 Only two symbols (0 and 1)
 Binary digit is also referred as “bit”. BIT is the short form of binary digit. It is either a 0 or a 1.
 Each number represent a power of base – 2
 Rightmost position is 20, second position from right is 2 1 and so on
e.g. 10101 or (10101)2 is
= (1x24)+(0x23)+(1x22)+(0x21)+(1x20)
= (1x16)+(0x8) +(1x4) +(0x2) +(1x1)
= 16 + 0 + 4 + 0 + 1
= 21 or (21)10
 Binary equivalent of decimal digit 2 is 10 or (10)2, read as one, zero not ten
 With n bits (n positions) only 2n patterns are possible
e.g. 3 bits (3 positions) can have on 23 = 8 patterns i.e. 000,001,010, 011, 100,101,110,111
For 3 bits
000 0
001 1
010 2
011 3
100 4
101 5
110 6
111 7
Octal Number System:
 Base – 8 number system, so eight symbols or digits: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7
 Each positional number represent the power of base 8
e.g. (2057)8 = (2x83)+(0x82)+(5x81)+(7x80) = 1024 + 0 + 40 + 7 = 1071 or (1071)10
 As there exist only eight digits in octal number system so 3 bits (23 = 8) are sufficient to represent any
octal digit in binary number system
Hexadecimal Number System:
 Base – 16 number system, so 16 symbols or digits: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F (A=10, B=11, C= 12… F = 15)
 Each position represent a power of base 16
e.g. (1AF)16 = (1x162) + (Ax161) + (Fx160) = 256 + 160 + 15 = 431
 As there are only 16 digits in hexadecimal number system so 4 bits (24 = 16) are sufficient to represent
any hexadecimal digit in binary
Converting From One Number System to Another:
 Any number value in one number system can be represented in any other number system
1. Converting to decimal from another base
Step 1: Determine the column (positional) value of each digit (this depends on the
position of the digit and base of the number system)
Col1 = 20 = 1
Col2 = 21 = 2
Col3 = 22 = 4
Col4 = 23 = 8
Col5 = 24 = 16
Step 2: Multiply the obtained column values (in step 1) by the digits in the
corresponding columns
16 8 4 2 1
x1 x1 x0 x0 x1

=16 8 0 0 1
Step 3: Sum the products calculated. The total value is equivalent to value in decimal
=16 + 8 + 0 + 0 + 1= 25
2. Converting from Base 10 to a new base (Division-Remainder Technique)
Step 1: Divide the decimal number to be converted by the base value of “new base”
Step 2: Record the remainder from step 1 as rightmost digit (least significant digit) of
the “new base”
Step 3: Divide the quotient of the previous divide by the “new base” value
Step 4: Record the remainder from step 3 as the next digit (to the left) of “new base”
Repeat steps 3 and 4 recording remainders from right to left until quotient
becomes 0
e.g. (42)10 = ?2
2 42
21 - 0
10 - 1
5 - 0
2 - 1
1 - 0
0 - 1
(42)10 = (101010)2
3. Converting from a base other than 10 to a base other than 10
Step 1: Convert the original number to a decimal number (Base 10)
e.g. (545)6 = ?4
545 = 5 x 62 + 4 x 61 + 5 x 60
= 5 x 36 + 4 x 6 + 5 x 1
= 180 + 24 + 5
= (209)10
Step 2: Convert the number so obtained to a new base
Convert (209)10 to base 4
4 209
52 - 1
13 - 0
3 - 1
0 - 3
(209)10 = (3101)4

Shortcut Methods:
1. Binary To Octal Conversion
Step 1: Divide binary digits into group of three (starting from right)
e.g. 11010102 =?8
1101010 = 001 101 010
Step 2: Convert each group into one octal digit
= 001 101 010
=1 5 2
11010102 =1528
2. Binary to Hexadecimal Conversion
Step 1: Divide binary digits into group of four (starting from right)
e.g. 110100112 =?16
11010011 = 1101 0011
Step 2: Convert each group into one hexadecimal digit
= 1101 0011
11012 = 1x23 + 1x22 + 0x21 + 1x20 = 8 + 4 + 0 + 1 = 1310 =D16
00112 = 0x23 + 0x22 + 1x21 + 1x20 = 0 + 0 + 2 + 1 = 316
110100112 =D316
3. Hexadecimal to Binary Conversion
Step 1: Convert the decimal equivalent of each hexadecimal digit to 4 binary digits
e.g. 2AB16 =?2
216 = 210 = 00102
A16 = 1010 = 10102
B16 = 1110 = 10112
Step 2: Combine all resulting groups
(2AB)16 = (0010 1010 1011)2
4. Octal to Binary Conversion
Step 1: Convert each octal digit to 3 digit binary number
e.g. 5628 =?2
58 = 1012
68 = 1102
28 = 0102
Step 2: Combine all resulting groups
(562)8 = (101 110 010)2