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What is Computer, Characteristics of a computer, Appications of computer, How computer works, Functions of computer?

 What is computer?

The word computer is derived from 'compute', which means to calculate. A computer is an electronic device  that accepts data from the user, processes the data and  operations on it and gives the user an output. The full form of computer is Common Operating Machine Purposely Used For Technological and Education Research.  Computer can handle multiple tasks like documentation, designing, entertaining, education, weather forcasting and many more. In today's time computers are being used everywhere, whether it is  army or banks.

computer system



Characteristics of a computer

A computer is capable to perform highly complex tasks, which a man is not able to perform efficienlty. The various strenghts of computer are:

  1. SPEED:  A computer works at an amazing speed without making any mistakes. The computer can process data very fast at the rate of millions of instructions per second.
  2.  ACCURACY:  Computers provide a high degree of accuracy. It hardly commits mistakes in the processing of data. The errors genrally occur when  the input is incorrect or hardware is not functioning properly.
  3. RELIABILITY: A computer is more reliable than a human being as it never gets tired or bored. Computer can work for many hours without taking rest.
  4. VERSATILITY: A computer can perform various types of works. Computers can perform multiple tasks at a same time.
  5. STORAGE CAPACITY: A computer can store a large amount of data in its memory, in the form of documents, sounds, videos, pictures and in many other formats.
  6. DELIGECY: Unlike human beings, a computer is free from tiredness. Computers can work for many hours without any mistakes or without any rest.
  7. REDUCTION OF MAN POWER
  8. REDUCTION IN PAPER WORK
  9. UNLIKE HUMANS COMPUTERS HAVE  NOT ANY EMOTIONS

Limitations of computer system

  1. DEPENDENCE ON POWER: A computer is an electronic device so it always needs electrical power supply  which makes it costly.
  2. NO INTELLIGENCE: Unlike humans computers have no IQ. So indirectly without human computers cannot work. Without any instructions computers cannot work. 
  3. INCAPABITLITY TO THINK
  4. COMPUTERS NEED PROPER ENVIRONMENT: Computers need favorable environment for working like you cannot work on computers on a center of road or in middle of forest.

Applications of computer system

Some of the areas where computers are being used are:
  1. MILTARY
  2. BANKS
  3. RESEARCH
  4. EDUCATION
  5. MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
  6. CRIMINAL IDENTIFICATION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT
  7. EDUTAINMENT
  8. BUSINESS
  9. ANIMATION AND FILMS
  10. BOOK PUBLISHING
  11. COMMERCIAL PURPOSE
  12. SPORTS
  13. MEDICAL SCIENCES
  14. GOVERNMENT SECTOR
  15. LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Video Editing in computers

Computers in medical sciences




How computer works?

A computer system consists hardware and software which processes data to convert it into a meaningful information.

Hardware: 

The physical component of a computer which we can touch and feel are known as hardware. Example: Monitor, printer, mouse, keyboard, webcam, joystick, cpu etc.

Software:

Software is a set of programs which controls the internal operations of a computer. 

Types of softwares:

There are many types of softwares but generally we discuss only two types:
  1. Application Software:  The softwares like develop to perform a specific tasks are called application softwares like we can discuss the example of  Adobe-Photoshop, in adobe photoshop we can only edit images we cannot edit any text or videos in Adobe photoshop because it is designed only to perform a specific task so it is an  application software.
  2. System software:  The software which is develop to perform  various tasks or  the softwares without which the computer system cannot be run. For example operating system is  a best example of system software. without operating system we cannot use our computer system. 

Functions of a computer system

  • Accepts the data 
  • Processes the data according to given set of instructions.
  • Stores the data.
  • Gives the result.(output)

Basic organisation of computer

Components of CPU:

  1. Memory Unit (MU)
  2. Arithemetic and Logical Unit (ALU)
  3. Control Unit (CU)

Memory Unit: 

Computer memory is classified into two categories:
  1. Internal Memory
  2. External Memory


RAM:

(Random Access Memory) is a type of computer internal memory that can be accessed randomly. 
Example:  Consider a water bucket and a glass. Now If we want to drink water then we put glass on bucket and drink that water. Ram also works like this. Ram is a volatile memory and instructions stored temporarily during its processing. 

Ram


Types of Ram:

  • DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory)
  • SRAM (Static Random Access Memory)
  • SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory)
  • DDR (Double Data Rate Memory)

ROM:

Rom stands for read only memory. It is a type of memory that can only read imformation as compared to RAM which can be both read and written. Exampe: All music files, videos, text files or anything that you save on your computer is saved in ROM.

ROM ( Hard Disk Drive )



Types of Rom:

  • PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory)
  • EPROM (Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory)
  • EEPROM (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory)
  • Flash Memory
  • Masked ROM

know the fact:  

Rom stores a set of instructions, called Basic input-output system(BIOS). Once the computer is on, BIOS is used to start the operating system.

External memory

External memory is also known as  auxillary memory or secondary memory.  The speed of external memory is much slower than internal memory. Some commonly used external memory storage devices are: hard disks, cd/dvd, pendrive, memory card etc.


Units of memory

units of  memory


Cache memory

Cache memory is a special high speed memory,  that is also a type of physical memory which can either be inserted on a moterboard or made a part of CPU.


ALU (Arithmeric Logic Unit)

ALU is the component of CPU which performs the arthmetic  and logical operations on the operands.
The arthemetic operation are addition, substractions, multiplication and division.

Control Unit

This unit controls operation of every other component of a computer system. It is known as the centeral nervous system of a computer system as it manages all other units.





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