Computer Components : Computers come in all different shapes and forms (examples: desktops, laptops), but the main

components that make up a computer pretty much stay the same. Components can also be refereed to as; hardware or parts. Throughout this website I will explain the various components in a PC computer, and try my best to give you the information you need to better understand how your computer works. Some of this information is considered basic computer knowledge, but there is no better place to start with than with the basics. Knowing this valuable information can help you if you are going to buy, repair, maintain or even build your own computer. Computer Case - Where all of the components are stored. CPU - It is basically the brain of your computer. The CPU is a used to process everything from basic to complex functions in a computer. RAM - RAM is memory that attaches to the motherboard. RAM is hardware used to temporarily store and access data. Motherboard - A Motherboard is the most important component in a computer system. All of the other hardware in a computer system connect to the motherboard. Power Supply - A Power Supply is the sends power to all of the other hardware so they can operate. Hard Drive - A Hard Drive is used for permanently storing files and programs. Disk Drives - Disk Drives can be a floppy drive, CD drive, DVD drive or other possible file storage devices that are used in a computer. Video Card - A Video Card is the part of a computer system that converts binary code from the CPU so you can view it on a monitor. Monitor - The part of a computer that allows you to see what the computer is processing. Keyboard - A keyboard allows a computer user to enter text commands into a computer system. Mouse - A mouse allows a computer user to use a point and click interface to enter commands.

Concept of Booting

In computing, booting (also known as booting up) is the initial set of operations that a computer system performs when electrical power is switched on. The process begins when a computer that has been turned off is re-energized, and ends when the computer is ready to perform its normal operations. On modern general purpose computers, this can take tens of seconds and typically involves performing power-on self-test, locating and initializing peripheral devices, and then finding, loading and starting an operating system. Many computer systems also allow these operations to be initiated by a software command without cycling power, in what is known as a soft reboot, though some of the initial operations might be skipped on a soft reboot. A boot loader is a computer program that loads the main operating system or runtime environment for the computer after completion of self-tests. The computer term boot is short for bootstrap or bootstrap load and derives from the phrase to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps. The usage calls attention to the paradox that a computer cannot run without first loading software but some software must run before any software can be loaded. Early computers used a variety of ad-hoc methods to get a fragment of software into memory to solve this problem. The invention of integrated circuit Read-only memory (ROM) of various types solved the paradox by allowing computers to be shipped with a start up program that could not be erased, but growth in the size of ROM has allowed ever more elaborate start up procedures to be implemented. What is Software : Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provides the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it. Software refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of the computer for some purposes. In other words, software is a set of programs, procedures, algorithms and its documentation concerned with the operation of a data processing system. Program software performs the function of the program it implements, either by directly providing instructions to the computer hardware or by serving as input to another piece of software. Types of Software :

1. System software System software is computer software designed to operate the computer hardware to provide basic functionality and to provide a platform for running application software. System software includes device drivers, operating systems, servers, utilities, and window systems. System software is responsible for managing a variety of independent hardware components, so that they can work together harmoniously. Its purpose is to unburden the application software programmer from the often complex details of the particular computer being used, including such

accessories as communications devices, printers, device readers, displays and keyboards, and also to partition the computer's resources such as memory and processor time in a safe and stable manner. Types of System Software
a) An Operating System: An operating system (OS) is a set of software that manages

computer hardware resources and provides common services for computer programs. The operating system is a vital component of the system software in a computer system. Application programs require an operating system to function. E.g. MS-DOS, MS-Windows, Unix, Linux etc.

b) Utility Software : Utility software is system software designed to help analyze,

configure, optimize or maintain a computer. A single piece of utility software is usually called a utility or tool. c) Compiler & Interpreter: a. Compiler:- A compiler is a computer program (or set of programs) that transforms source code written in a programming language (the source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object code). The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program. b. Interpreter: Computer language processor that translates a program line-by-line (statement-by-statement) and carries out the specified actions in sequence. Difference between compiler and interpreter A complier converts the high level instruction into machine language while an interpreter converts the high level instruction into an intermediate form. Before execution, entire program is executed by the compiler whereas after translating the first line, an interpreter then executes it and so on. List of errors is created by the compiler after the compilation process while an interpreter stops translating after the first error. An independent executable file is created by the compiler whereas interpreter is required by an interpreted program each time.

2. Programming software Programming software include tools in the form of programs or applications that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs such as compilers, debuggers, interpreters, linkers, and text editors, that can be combined together to accomplish a task, much as one might use multiple hand tools to fix a physical object. Programming tools are intended to assist a programmer in writing computer programs, and they may be combined in an integrated development environment (IDE) to more easily manage all of these functions. 3. Application software Application software is developed to perform in any task that benefits from computation. It is a set of programs that allows the computer to perform a specific data processing job for the user. It is a broad category, and encompasses software of many kinds, including the internet browser being used to display this page. This category includes:

Business software Computer-aided design Databases Decision-making software Educational software Image editing Industrial automation Mathematical software Medical software Molecular modeling software Quantum chemistry and solid state physics software Simulation software Spreadsheets Telecommunications (i.e., the Internet and everything that flows on it) Video editing software Video games Word processing

Need of an Operating System: In earlier day's user had to design the application according to the internal structure of the hardware. Operating System was needed to enable the user to design the application without

concerning the details of the computer's internal structure. In general the boundary between the hardware & software is transparent to the user. Usage of Operating System: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Easy interaction between the human & computer. Starting computer operation automatically when power in turned on. Loading & scheduling users program. Controlling input & output. Controlling program execution. Managing use of main memory. Providing security to users program.

Functions of an Operating System -resource management, -data management, -job (task) management, and -standard means of communication between user and computer.

The resource management function of an OS allocates computer resources such as CPU time, main memory, secondary storage, and input and output devices for use. The data management functions of an OS govern the input and output of the data and their location, storage, and retrieval. The job management function of an OS prepares, schedules, controls, and monitors jobs submitted for execution to ensure the most efficient processing. A job is a collection of one or more related programs and their data. A job is a collection of one or more related programs and their data. The OS establishes a standard means of communication between users and their computer systems. It does this by providing a user interface and a standard set of commands that control the hardware. Types of an Operating System:

Batch Processing Operating System

In a batch processing operating system interaction between the user and processor is limited or there is no interaction at all during the execution of work. Data and programs that need to be processed are bundled and collected as a batch and executed together. Batch processing operating systems are ideal in situations where: - There are large amounts of data to be processed. - Similar data needs to be processed. - Similar processing is involved when executing the data. The system is capable of identifying times when the processor is idle at which time batches maybe processed. Processing is all performed automatically without any user intervention.

Real-time Operating System

A real-time operating system processes inputs simultaneously, fast enough to affect the next input or process. Real-time systems are usually used to control complex systems that require a lot of processing like machinery and industrial systems.

Single User Operating System

A single user OS as the name suggests is designed for one user to effectively use a computer at a time.

Multi-Tasking Operating System

In this type of OS several applications maybe simultaneously loaded and used in the memory. While the processor handles only one application at a particular time it is capable of switching between the applications effectively to apparently simultaneously execute each application. This type of operating system is seen everywhere today and is the most common type of OS, the Windows operating system would be an example.

Multi-User Operating System

This type of OS allows multiple users to simultaneously use the system, while here as well, the processor splits its resources and handles one user at a time, the speed and efficiency at which it does this makes it apparent that users are simultaneously using the system, some network systems utilize this kind of operating system.

Distributed Operating System

In a distributed system, software and data maybe distributed around the system, programs and files maybe stored on different storage devices which are located in different geographical locations and maybe accessed from different computer terminals.

While we are mostly accustomed to seeing multi-tasking and multi-user operating systems, the other operating systems are usually used in companies and firms to power special systems.

Graphical User Interface : a graphical user interface (GUI, commonly pronounced gooey[1]) is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices using images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and office equipment. A GUI represents the information and actions available to a user through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation, as opposed to text-based interfaces, typed command labels or text navigation. The actions are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.

ASCII: The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is a character-encoding scheme originally based on the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text. Most modern character-encoding schemes are based on ASCII, though they support many additional characters. ASCII includes definitions for 128 characters: 33 are non-printing control characters (now mostly obsolete) that affect how text and space is processed and 95 printable characters, including the space (which is considered an invisible graphic.
Indian Standard Code for Information Interchange (ISCII) is a coding scheme for representing various writing systems of India. It encodes the main Indic scripts and a Roman

transliteration. The supported scripts are: Assamese, Bengali (Bengla), Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil, and Telugu. ISCII does not encode the writing systems of India based on Arabic, but its writing system switching codes nonetheless provide for Kashmiri, Sindhi, Urdu, Persian, Pashto and Arabic. The Arabic-based writing systems were subsequently encoded in the PASCII encoding. The Brahmi-derived writing systems are mostly rather similar in structure, but have different letter shapes. So ISCII encodes letters with the same phonetic value at the same code point, overlaying the various scripts. For example, the ISCII codes 0xB3 0xDB represent [ki] The writing system can be selected in rich text by markup or in plain text by means of the ATR code described below. One motivation for the use of a single encoding is the idea that it will allow easy transliteration from one writing system to another. However, there are enough incompatibilities that this is not really a practical idea. See About ISCII.

ISCII is a stateful 8-bit encoding. The lower 128 code points are plain ASCII, the upper 128 code points are ISCII-specific. In addition to the code points representing characters, ISCII makes use of a code point with mnemonic ATR that indicates that the following byte contains one of two kinds of information. One set of values changes the writing system until the next writing system indicator or end-of-line. Another set of values select display modes, such as bold and italic. ISCII does not provide a means of indicating the default writing system.