Chapter Two

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Components of Computer System
• In general, a system is a group of components that
work together in coordination to achieve a common
goal.
• Computer system is a system that has two fundamental
components: Hardware component and Software
component

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Hardware Component
Input devices
•The function of input devices is to accept data and convert
it into a form suitable for computer processing.
•In other words, input hardware allows people to put data
into the computer in a form that the computer can use. It
may include: keyboard, mouse, scanner and so on.
Keyboard
•A computer keyboard is a peripheral modeled after the
typewriter keyboard.
•Keyboards are designed for the input of text and characters
and also to control the operation of a computer.

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Keys on the Keyboard
The keys on the keyboard are grouped according to their
functions as follows:
Alphanumeric keys
•The group of keys that comprises the alphabets,
punctuation marks, and digits. These keys are used to enter
text, digit, and punctuation marks.
Function keys
•The group of keys found at the top of keyboard labeled
from F1 to F12. These keys execute different commands
based on the applications that are running.

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Keys on the Keyboard
Numeric keypad
Found at the right most of the keyboard, is the numeric
keypad.
These keys work with the special key called NumLock –
However, when NumLock is off, the numeric keypad is used as
cursor movement keys.
Cursor movement keys
The Cursor, also called the insertion point, is the symbol on
the display screen that shows where data may be entered next.
The cursor movement keys, or arrow keys, are used to move
the cursor around the text on the screen. These keys move the
cursor left, right, up or down.

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Keys on the Keyboard
Editing keys
Editing keys are the keys which are used to make our
text stylish. They change what has been entered. Editing
keys include: Spacebar, Enter (Return), Delete,
Backspace, etc.
Special keys
Special keys are keys that are used to execute some
commands. They also work in combination with other
keys to execute commands. These keys include: Shift, Alt,
Ctrl etc.

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Input Device
Mouse consists of:
•Primary button (Left button)
•Secondary button (Right Button)
The following operations can be performed using the
mouse.
•Selection (Single click)
•Giving Commands (Double click)
•Dragging Objects (By pressing mouse button and
moving the mouse)
•Dropping Objects (By releasing mouse button)

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Input Device
Scanners
•Which are often used in desktop publishing - translate
images of text, drawings and photos into digital form.
Joysticks
Joystick is a pointing device that consists of a vertical
handle mounted on a base containing one or two
buttons. The vertical handle of the joystick can be
rotated around 360 degrees.
As the handle is rotated the cursor also moves on the
screen. Joystick is often used for playing games

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Input Device
Microphone
•The word "microphone" (Greek mikros "small" and phone
"voice" or "sound") originally referred to a mechanical
hearing aid for small sounds.
•Without the microphone computers could not have
produced any sound nor could they have been used to
manipulate music and sound.
Touch screen
•Touch screens or touch panels or touch screen panels are
display overlays which have the ability to display and
receive information on the same screen.

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Input Device
Touch pad
• In Touchpad the cursor is controlled with the fingers.
•As fingers are moved over the surface of the touchpad the cursor
moves on the screen.
•The click operation is performed by tapping the fingers on the
surface of the pad.
Track ball
• Track Ball is another pointing device and a variant of the mouse.
It contains a rotating ball on top of the stationery device.
•On rotating the ball the cursor moves on the screen.
•The track ball also contains two buttons and the operations are as
similar for the mouse.

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Input Device
Light pen
• The Light Pen is a light sensitive stylus or pen like
device, connected by a wire to the computer.
•There is a button in the Light Pen.
•When the user brings the pen to the desired location in
the screen and presses the button, the computer
identifies the command and executes accordingly.
• It is mainly used for CAD (Computer Aided Design)
applications.

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Processing Devices
CPU
Abbreviation of central processing unit, and
pronounced as separate letters.
The CPU is the brains of the computer. Sometimes
referred to simply as the processor or central processor,
the CPU is where most calculations take place

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Processing Devices
CPU has three components, namely:
•The arithmetic logic unit (ALU), which performs
arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and
division) and logical (comparison, negation, conjunction,
and disjunction) operations.
•The control unit, which extracts instructions from
memory and decodes and executes them, calling on the
ALU when necessary.
•The Memory unit or registers, which store intermediate
results of ALU

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Storage devices(primary storage)
Cache memory
Small memories on or close to the CPU chip can be
made faster than the much larger RAM (main memory)
RAM (Random Access Memory)
Generally, RAM in a computer is considered main
memory or primary storage: the working area used for
loading, displaying and manipulating applications and
ROM (Read-only Memory)
Read-only memory (ROM) is a class of storage media
used in computers and other electronic devices.

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Types of ROM
PROM (Programmable Read-Only Memory) can be
written to (programmed) via a special device, a PROM
programmer.
EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory)
can be erased by exposure to ultraviolet light then
rewritten via an EPROM programmer
EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-
Only Memory) allow the entire ROM (or selected banks
of the ROM) to be electrically erased (flashed back to
zero) then written to without taking them out of the
computer (camera, MP3 player, etc.).

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Secondary storage
Magnetic tape is a non-volatile storage medium
consisting of a magnetic coating on a thin plastic strip.
Magnetic disk

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Magnetic Disk
A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of
a disk of thin, flexible ("floppy") .
Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive.
Floppy disk is cheap, and portable,
 but it has small storage capacity (1.44 MB) and is
unreliable.
A hard disk drive (HDD, also commonly shortened to
hard drive and formerly known as a fixed disk) is a
digitally encoded non-volatile storage device which stores
data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces.
Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to an

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Optical Disk
 CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable) is a write once, read-only
optical magnetic media commonly known as optical disc.
CD-RW (Compact Disc ReWritable)CD-RW is a rewritable
optical disc format.
DVD (sometimes called "Digital Versatile Disc", or "Digital
Video Disc").
It is an optical disc storage media format that can be used for
data storage, including movies with high video and sound
quality.
• Flash Memory: USB flash drives -thumb drives, handy drives-,
which are used for general storage and transfer of data
between computers.

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Output Devices
LCD: Short for liquid crystal display, a type of display
used in digital watches and many portable computers.
LCD displays utilize two sheets of polarizing material
with a liquid crystal solution between them.
ELD: A technology used to produce a very thin display
screen, called a flat-panel display, used in some portable
computers. An ELD works by sandwiching a thin film of
phosphorescent substance between two plates

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Printer – hardcopy output
Daisy-wheel printers produce letter-quality print but
cannot print graphics
Dot-matrix: Creates characters by striking pins against
an ink ribbon. Each pin makes a dot, and combinations
of dots form characters and illustrations.
 Ink-jet: Sprays ink at a sheet of paper. Ink-jet printers
produce high-quality text and graphics.
Laser: Uses the same technology as copy machines.
Laser printers produce very high quality text and
graphics.

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Printer – hardcopy output
 LCD & LED: Similar to a laser printer, but uses liquid
crystals or light-emitting diodes rather than a laser to
produce an image on the drum.
 Line printer: Contains a chain of characters or pins
that print an entire line at one time. Line printers are
very fast, but produce low-quality print.
Thermal printer: An inexpensive printer that works by
pushing heated pins against heat-sensitive paper.
Thermal printers are widely used in calculators and fax
machines.

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Printers Characteristics
Quality of type: The output produced by printers is
said to be either letter quality (as good as a typewriter),
near letter quality, or draft quality.
Only daisy-wheel, ink-jet, and laser printers produce
letter-quality type.
Some dot-matrix printers claim letter-quality print, but
if you look closely, you can see the difference.

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Printers Characteristics
Speed: Measured in characters per second (cps) or
pages per minute (ppm), the speed of printers varies
widely. Daisy-wheel printers tend to be the slowest,
printing about 30 cps.
Line printers are fastest (up to 3,000 lines per minute).
Dot-matrix printers can print up to 500 cps, and laser
printers range from about 4 to 20 text pages per
minute.

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Printers Characteristics
 Impact or non-impact: Daisy-wheel, dot-matrix, and line
printers are impact printers.
Non-impact printers include laser printers and ink-jet
printers.
The important difference between impact and non-impact
printers is that impact printers make physical contact with
the paper and are much noisier whereas non impact
printers do not make physical contact and are too noisy.
 Graphics: Some printers (daisy-wheel and line printers)
can print only text. Other printers can print both text and
graphics.

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Plotter – Hardcopy Output
A Plotter is also a printer that produces hard copy
output. Plotters produce high quality color graphics
output by using pens for creating images.
Plotters help to draw maps from stored data.
Plotters are ideal for Engineering, Drafting and many
other applications that require intricate graphics.

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Speaker – Voice Output
Speaker is an electro-acoustic transducer that converts
electrical signals into sounds loud enough to be heard
at a distance.
It is used in computer system to produce sound or
voice output.
The sound is input from external world into computer
system via microphone and is output to external world
via speaker

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 Robot – Physical Output
Robot is the most intriguing output device.
 Robotic device consists of arms that can perform a
preprogrammed task.
Robots are mostly used in manufacturing tasks such as
spray painting or assembling parts.
Advanced robots are used in scientific research such as
space and undersea exploration.

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Software Component
Software is “Soft” because you can’t touch the
instructions, the way you touch the computer
equipment – the “hard” ware.
System software is a generic term referring to any
computer software that is an essential part of the
computer system.
An operating system is an obvious example, while device
driver and language software are less obvious examples.
An operating system (OS) is a computer program that
manages the hardware and software resources of a
computer.

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Basic functions of operating system
input /output management
Controls spooling and buffering, multitasking and
overlapping, time sharing and network.
memory management
Control the allocation of RAM for various purposes like
background and foreground program execution priorities
and virtual memory system.
file management
Under which files are stored on secondary storage
devices, where can be copied, sorted, displayed and
removed among other functions.

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Language Software
Languages are used for writing instructions or
software. The following are some of the examples.
Machine language is the only language the computer
directly understands. It is in the form of strings of
binary numbers. A machine language instruction has at
least two parts:
opcode – function code which specifies the function
performed and
operand address – which specifies location of data and
other instructions

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Language Software
• Assembly language is easier to use than machine
language. But it needs special translating program. It is
machine dependent.
• High level languages resemble some human languages
such as English and are easier for human programmers
to write. Most of high level languages are machine
independent.e.g. FORTRAN, BASIC, Pascal, C, C++,
Java …

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Language Translators
Depending on the language, the translator for high level
languages is either a compiler or an interpreter.
However, code written using assembly language is
translated to machine language by a program called
assembler.
Compiler – execute later: a compiler is a language translator
that converts the entire program of a high level language
into machine language before the computer executes the
program.
 The programming instructions of a high level language are
called source code. The compiler translates it into machine
language, which in this case is called the object code.

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Language Translators
Interpreter – execute immediately: an interpreter is a
language translator that converts each high level
language into machine language and executes
immediately, statement by statement.
No object code is saved, as with compiler. Therefore,
interpreted code generally runs more slowly than
compiled code.
However, code can be tested line by lineExamples of
high level languages using interpreter are BASIC, and
Visual Basic

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Utility Software
Utility Programs are generally used to support, enhance
or expand existing programs in a computer system.
Examples of utility programs are
Backup – to duplicate the data or information for safety.
Data Recovery – to restore data that is physically
damaged or corrupted.
Virus Protection – Antivirus software which will
eliminate viruses from affected files or protect files from
being infected from viruses.
Data Compression – used to compress huge files and save
memory storage.

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Application Software
Basically, there are four categories of application
software.
Productivity Software: The purpose of this software is
to make the users more productive at performing
general tasks. For example, word processing, spread
sheets, presentation, database managers, accounting
etc.
Home / Personal software: The purpose of this software
is mainly for domestic and personal use. For example,
cook books, medical guide, gardening, etc.

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Application software
Education / Reference software: The purpose of this
software is mainly to learn any subject or to refer for
additional information.
For example: Encyclopedia, Dictionaries, Computer
Based Tutorials (CBT), etc.
Entertainment software: The purpose of this software is
for entertainment and time passing. For example,
games.

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 Question???
Thank You

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