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Introduction to computers
The document provides an introduction to computers, outlining their definitions, components, and the information processing cycle, including input, processing, output, storage, and communication. It discusses various types of computers, their categories, and historical advancements from mechanical to electronic digital computers, culminating in modern developments like microprocessors and artificial intelligence. Additionally, it highlights the advantages and disadvantages of computer usage, along with the evolution of computer technology through its generations.
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Introduction to computers
- 1. Introduction to ComputersTushar B Kute, Department of Information Technology, Sandip Institute of Technology & Research Centre, Nashik. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 2. How is a computer defined? What is a Computer? Electronic device operating under the control of instructions stored in its own memory http://www.tusharkute.com Produces and stores results Processes data into information Data that is organized, meaningful, and useful Accepts data Raw facts, figures, and symbols
- 3. What is aComputer? What is the information processing cycle ? Input Process Output Storage Communication http://www.tusharkute.com
- 4. The Components ofa Computer What is an input device ? Hardware used to enter data and instructions http://www.tusharkute.com
- 5. The Components ofa Computer What is an output device ? Hardware that conveys information to one or more people http://www.tusharkute.com
- 6. The Components ofa Computer What is the system unit ? Case containing electronic components used to process data http://www.tusharkute.com
- 7. The Components ofa Computer What are two main components on the motherboard? Central Processing Unit (CPU) Also called a processor The electronic component that interprets and carries out the basic instructions that operate the computer Memory Consists of electronic components that store instructions waiting to be executed and data needed by those instructions http://www.tusharkute.com
- 8. The Components ofa Computer What is storage? Storage media Physical material on which data, instructions, and information are stored Storage device Records and retrieves items to and from a storage medium Holds data, instructions, and information for future use http://www.tusharkute.com
- 9. The Components ofa Computer What is storage media ? Digital cameras Handheld computers Portable, thin memory cards used in: http://www.tusharkute.com
- 10. The Components ofa Computer What is a floppy disk? Thin, circular, flexible disk enclosed in rigid plastic shell http://www.tusharkute.com
- 11. The Components ofa Computer What is a USB flash drive? Provides much greater storage capacity than a floppy disk or Zip ® disk Small and lightweight enough to be transported on a keychain or in a pocket http://www.tusharkute.com
- 12. The Components ofa Computer What is a hard disk? Provides greater storage capacity than a floppy disk, Zip disk, or USB flash drive Most are housed inside of the system unit http://www.tusharkute.com
- 13. The Components ofa Computer What is a compact disc? Flat, round, portable metal disc CD-ROM DVD-ROM http://www.tusharkute.com
- 14. The Components ofa Computer What is a communications device ? Hardware component that enables a computer to send and receive data, instructions, and information Occurs over cables, telephone lines, cellular radio networks, satellites, and other transmission media http://www.tusharkute.com
- 15. Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Computers What are the advantages of using computers? http://www.tusharkute.com Storage Communications Speed Reliability Consistency
- 16. Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Computers What are the disadvantages of using computers? Violation of Privacy Impact on Environment Impact on Labor Force Health Risks http://www.tusharkute.com
- 17. Categories of ComputersWhat are the categories of computers? Personal Computers (desktop) Mobile Computers and Mobile Devices Midrange Servers Mainframes Supercomputers Embedded Computers http://www.tusharkute.com
- 18. Personal Computers Whatare the two most popular series of personal computers ? http://www.tusharkute.com PC and compatibles use the Windows operating system Apple Macintosh uses the Macintosh operating system (Mac OS)
- 19. Personal Computers Whatis a desktop computer ? Designed so all of the components fit entirely on or under a desk or table http://www.tusharkute.com
- 20. Mobile Computers andMobile Devices What is a notebook computer ? Portable, small enough to fit on your lap Also called a laptop computer Generally more expensive than a desktop computer http://www.tusharkute.com
- 21. Mobile Computers andMobile Devices What is a Tablet PC ? Especially useful for taking notes Resembles a letter-sized slate Allows you to write on the screen using a digital pen http://www.tusharkute.com
- 22. Mobile Computers andMobile Devices What are mobile devices ? Small enough to carry in a pocket Internet-enabled telephone is a “smart phone” http://www.tusharkute.com
- 23. Mobile Computers andMobile Devices What is a handheld computer ? http://www.tusharkute.com Used by mobile employees such as meter readers and delivery people Small enough to fit in one hand
- 24. Mobile Computers andMobile Devices What is a personal digital assistant (PDA) ? Provides personal organizer functions Calendar Appointment book Address book Calculator Notepad http://www.tusharkute.com
- 25. Mobile Computers andMobile Devices What are smart phones and smart watches ? http://www.tusharkute.com A smart watch is an Internet-enabled watch that automatically adjusts to time zone changes and stores personal information A smart phone is an Internet-enabled telephone that usually provides PDA capabilities
- 26. Servers What typesof servers are there? Midrange server Powerful, large computer that supports up to a few thousand computers Mainframe Very powerful, expensive computer that supports thousands of computers Supercomputer The fastest, most powerful, most expensive computer. Used for applications requiring complex mathematical calculations http://www.tusharkute.com
- 27. Embedded Computers Whatis an embedded computer ? A special-purpose computer that functions as a component in a larger product http://www.tusharkute.com
- 28. Desktop Microcomputer Amicrocomputer that fits on a desk and runs on power from an electrical wall outlet. The CPU can be housed in either a vertical or a horizontal case. Has separate components (keyboard, mouse, etc.) that are each plugged into the computer. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 29. Laptop Computer Aportable, compact computer that can run on an electrical wall outlet or a battery unit. All components (keyboard, mouse, etc.) are in one compact unit. Usually more expensive than a comparable desktop. Sometimes called a Notebook. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 30. Mainframe Computer Largeexpensive computer capable of simultaneously processing data for hundreds or thousands of users. Used to store, manage, and process large amounts of data that need to be reliable, secure, and centralized. Usually housed in a closet sized cabinet. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 31. MiniComputers Mostly builtbetween 1963 and 1987 Smaller and less powerful than a mainframe, typically about the size and shape of a wardrobe, mounted in a single tall rack. Were often used in applications such as industrial control, permanently assigned to one application. These days they have been largely replaced by PCs. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 32. History of Computershttp://www.tusharkute.com
- 33. Pre-Mechanical Computing FromCounting on fingers to hash marks in sand to pebbles to hash marks on walls to hash marks on bone http://www.tusharkute.com
- 34. Mechanical computers From The Abacus c. 4000 BCE to Charles Babbage and his Difference Engine (1812 CE) http://www.tusharkute.com
- 35. Mechanical computers: TheAbacus (c. 4000 BCE) Abacus The earliest device that qualifies as a computer is the abacus. The abacus was invented 5,000 years ago in Asia Minor and is still in use today. This device allows user to calculate, by sliding beads arrangement on rack. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 36. Napier’s Bones andLogarithms (1617) http://www.tusharkute.com
- 37. Oughtred’s (1621) andSchickard‘s (1623) slide rule http://www.tusharkute.com
- 38. Blaise Pascal’s Pascaline(1645) Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) In 1642 Blaise Pascal, the 18 year old son of a French tax collector, invented a numerical wheel calculator to help his father in calculation. This device was known as “Pascaline” and was only able to add two numbers. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 39. Gottfried Wilhelm vonLeibnitz’s Stepped Reckoner (1674) Invented by a German Baron, Gottfried von Leibnitz. Developed through Pascal’s ideas. It can add, subtract, divide and multiply. Square roots are performed by series of stepped additions. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 40. Joseph-Marie Jacquard andhis punched card controlled looms (1804) http://www.tusharkute.com
- 41. Preparing the cardswith the pattern for the cloth to be woven http://www.tusharkute.com
- 42. Charles Babbage (1791-1871)The Father of Computers Charles Babbage (1791-1871) An English mathematician, Professor Charles Babbage made a “difference Engine” in 1833, which was powered by steam to solve mathematical equations. After 10 years, in 1842, he made a general purpose computer named “Analytical Engine”. This analytical engine could add, subtract, multiply and divide in automatic sequence at a rate of 60 additions per second. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 43. Charles Babbage’s DifferenceEngine http://www.tusharkute.com
- 44. Charles Babbage’s AnalyticalEngine http://www.tusharkute.com
- 45. Lady Augusta AdaCountess of Lovelace Lady Ada Augusta Lovelace (1816-1852) Lady Ada Augusta Lovelace was an English woman. Charles Babbage was her ideal. She studied and translated his works, adding her extensive footnotes. She was called as a first programmer because of her suggestion that punched cards could be prepared to instruct Babbage’s engine to repeat certain operations. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 46. Electro-mechanical computers FromHerman Hollerith’s 1890 Census Counting Machine to Howard Aiken and the Harvard Mark I (1944) http://www.tusharkute.com
- 47. Herman Hollerith andhis Census Tabulating Machine (1884) Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) In 1890, an American Herman Hollerith applied the idea of punchboards in the form of punch cards in computers for input and output. He invented a punched card tabulating machine. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 48. A closer lookat the Census Tabulating Machine http://www.tusharkute.com
- 49. The Harvard MarkI (1944) aka IBM’s Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC) http://www.tusharkute.com
- 50. Electronic digital computersFrom John Vincent Atanasoff’s 1939 Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) to the present day http://www.tusharkute.com
- 51. John von NeumannDesigned the Von Neumann Computer Architecture, which is still used in today’s computers. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 52. Allen Turing (1912-1954) The Turing Machine Aka The Universal Machine 1936 http://www.tusharkute.com
- 53. John Vincent Atanasoff(1903-1995) Physics Prof at Iowa State University, Ames, IA http://www.tusharkute.com
- 54. Clifford Berry (1918-1963) PhD student of Dr. Atanasoff’s http://www.tusharkute.com
- 55. 1939: The Atanasoff-BerryComputer (ABC) http://www.tusharkute.com
- 56. 1943: Bletchley Park’sColossus The Enigma Machine http://www.tusharkute.com
- 57. 1946: The ENIACJohn Presper Eckert (1919-1995) and John Mauchly (1907-1980) of the University of Pennsylvania Moore School of Engineering http://www.tusharkute.com
- 58. The ENIAC: ElectronicNumerical Integrator and Computer ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was made by Dr. John W. Mauchly collaborated with J. Presper Eckert, Jr. at the University of Pennsylvania. It was 1000 times faster than Mark I. It occupied 15000 square feet of floor spacing and weighs 30 tons. The ENIAC could do 5000 additions per minute. John Von Neumann designed the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer). http://www.tusharkute.com
- 59. EDVAC Proposed byMauchly and Eckert in August 1944. Stands for Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer. Its conceptual design was completed by 1946 but it became fully operational by 1952. Contained approximately 4000 vacuum tubes and 10,000 crystal diodes. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 60. UNIVAC First commerciallyavailable computer. Stands for Universal Automatic Computer. It was based on the EDVAC design. The development started on 1948 and the first unit was delivered on 1951, which therefore predates EDVAC’s becoming fully operational. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 61. Generations of ComputersA term which refers to the different advancements of computer technology characterized by the way computers operate resulting to miniaturization , speed , power , and proportionally increased memory . http://www.tusharkute.com
- 62. 1 st Generation (1940 – 1956) Computers are huge , slow , expensive , and often undependable . They used vacuum tubes for circuitry. They used magnetic drums for memory. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 63. 2 nd Generation (1956 – 1963) Transistors (1947) were already used and replaced vacuum tubes. Transistors allow computers to become smaller , faster , cheaper , more energy-efficient , and more reliable . One transistor is equivalent to 40 vacuum tubes. Heat generation problem that could inflict damage to computer is still existing. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 64. 3 rd Generation (1964 – 1971) The emergence of integrated circuits was the hallmark of the 3 rd generation of computers. Transistors were miniaturized and placed on silicon chips, called semiconductors. Computer’s speed drastically increased as well as its efficiency. Computers became accessible to the mass since it is smaller and cheaper. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 65. 4 th Generation (1971 – Present) The microprocessor brought the fourth generation of computers, as thousands of integrated circuits were built onto a single silicon chip. Computers are now very small. Microprocessors was intended for calculators but applied to computers later. Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), mouse and handheld devices are introduced. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 66. 5 th Generation (Present and Beyond) Artificial Intelligence is still under development although voice recognition are being used today. Quantum computation, and molecular and nanotechnology will radically change the face of computers in years to come. The goal is to develop devices that respond to natural language input and capable of learning and self-organization. http://www.tusharkute.com
- 67.
Editor's Notes
- #35 BCE (Before Common Era) is the now correct term in place of the more traditional BC (Before Christ). CE (Common Era) replaces AD (Anno Domini). After all, not everyone has a Christo-centric view of the world.
- #37 John Napier, a Scotsman, invented logarithms which use lookup tables to find the solution to otherwise tedious and error-prone mathematical calculations.
- #39 This famous French philosopher and mathematician invented the first digital calculator to help his father with his work collecting taxes. He worked on it for three years between 1642 and 1645. The device, called the Pascaline, resembled a mechanical calculator of the 1940's. It could add and subtract by the simple rotation of dials on the machine’s face.
- #40 Leibnitz’s Stepped Reckoner could not only add and subtract, but multiply and divide as well. Interesting thing about the Stepped Reckoner is that Leibnitz’s design was way ahead of his time. A working model of the machine didn’t appear till 1791, long after the inventor was dead and gone.
- #41 Joseph-Marie Jacquard was a weaver. He was very familiar with the mechanical music boxes and pianolas, pianos played by punched paper tape, which had been around for some time. One day he got the bright idea of adapting the use of punched cards to control his looms. If you look carefully at the picture on the right, and those on the following slide, you can see a continuous roll of these cards, each linked to the other, the holes in them punched strategically to control the pattern of the weave in the cloth produced by the loom. All the weaver had to do was work the loom without needing to think about the design of the cloth. Brilliant! Jacquard revolutionized patterned textile weaving. His invention also provided a model for the input and output of data in the electro-mechanical and electronic computing industry.
- #42 Here you see Jacquard’s workers preparing the cards for the looms. The looms became known as Jacquard looms, and today one of the premier fabric manufacturers is named after Joseph-Marie Jacquard.
- #43 Charles Babbage is recognized today as the Father of Computers because his impressive designs for the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine foreshadowed the invention of the modern electronic digital computer. Try and get a biography of Babbage if you can. He led a fascinating life, as did all the folks involved in the history of computers. He also invented the cowcatcher, dynamometer, standard railroad gauge, uniform postal rates, occulting lights for lighthouses, Greenwich time signals, heliograph opthalmoscope. He also had an interest in cyphers and lock-picking, but abhorred street musicians.
- #44 The precision machine tooling that produced these intricate machines could not have been achieved in an earlier age. Babbage’s inventions were born of the advances in technology that accompanied the Industrial Revolution. The Difference Engine was never fully built. Babbage drew up the blueprints for it while still an undergrad at Cambridge University in England. But while it was in process of being manufactured, he got a better idea and left this work unfinished in favor of the Analytical Engine illustrated on the next slide. The Analytical Engine was eventually built completely in the latter half of the 19th century, by Georg and Edvard Schuetz as per Babbage’s blueprints. Film footage exists of the machine in operation, and it is truly a sight to behold, a testament not only to Babbage’s genius, but also to the manufacturing prowess of the age.
- #45 Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine was intended to use loops of Jacquard's punched cards to control an automatic calculator, which could make decisions based on the results of previous computations. This machine was also intended to employ several features subsequently used in modern computers, including sequential control, branching, and looping.
- #46 Babbage owes a great debt to Lady Augusta Ada, Countess of Lovelace. Daughter of the famous romantic poet, Lord Byron, she was a brilliant mathematician who helped Babbage in his work. Above all, she documented his work, which Babbage never could bother to do. As a result we know about Babbage at all. Ada, who was a splendid mathematician and one of the few people who fully understood Babbage's vision, created a program for the Analytical Engine. Had the Analytical Engine ever actually worked, Ada's program would have been able to compute a mathematical sequence known as Bernoulli numbers. Based on this work, Ada is now credited as being the first computer programmer and, in 1979, a modern programming language was named ADA in her honor. remember that guys. Women are just as talented as men when it comes to math, science, and engineering, and society should recognize that and do its utmost to encourage girls to get into these important and lucrative fields.
- #47 Electricity was discovered long before it was actually named as such. One Sir Thomas Browne is supposed to have come up with the term “electricity”. It was a while before electricity was used to power computing machines.
- #48 Herman Hollerith worked as a statistician for the U.S. Census Bureau in the 1880s and 1890s. The U.S. Constitution requires a census count every ten years so that the membership of the House of Representatives will be proportional to the population of each state. This is always a moving target, hence the ten year review of the current state of demographic affairs. The 1880 census took seven years to process. The end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th centuries was the period of highest rate of immigration to the United States. Hollerith deduced, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude, that the next census would take longer than ten years, the results not available before the whole census counting thing had to start again. So, as the saying goes, “necessity became the mother of invention” and Hollerith designed and built the Census Counting Machine illustrated here and in the next slide. Punched cards (a la Jacquard looms) were used to collect the census data (the origin of the IBM punched cards) and the cards were fed into a sorting machine before being read by the census counting machine which recorded and tabulated the results. Each card was laid on an open grid. A matrix of wires was lowered onto the card and wherever there was a hole in the card, a wire fell through, making an electrical connection which triggered a count on the appropriate dial(s) in the face of the machine. Very simple, very effective. The 1890 census took just three months to process even though quite a bit more data was collected than ever before. Hollerith was the first American associated with the history of computers. As you might expect, he was also the first to make a bunch of money at it. His company, the Tabulating Machine Company, became the Computer Tabulating Recording Company in 1913 after struggling in the market and merging with another company that produced a similar product. The company hired a gentleman named Thomas J. Watson in 1918 who was primarily instrumental in turning the company around. In 1924, the company was renamed International Business machines (IBM) Corporation. The rest, as they say, is history…
- #49 Here you can see the sorter on the right and the census counting machine on the left.
- #50 While a professor of Physics at Harvard, Howard Aiken, illustrated above, was supported by IBM to build the ASCC computer (Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator). The computer had mechanical relays (switches) which flip-flopped back and forth to represent mathematical data. It was huge (of course), weighing some 35 tons with 500 miles of wiring. The guts of the machine was comprised of IBM counting machines.
- #51 John Vincent Atanasoff’s contribution to the history of computers is little known, thanks to the preoccupations of his university and the shenanigans of two rival inventors of electronic digital machines. Read on to find out more…
- #53 The story of modern electronic digital computing should start with Alan Turing who published a paper in 1936 On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungs problem . The paper proved that a machine capable of processing a stream of 1s and 0s according to programmed instructions would be capable of solving any problem that would count as a 'definite method.' As it happens, the set of problems included in this definition is the universe of mechanically solvable problems. Hence, the Turing Machine is also known as the Universal Machine, the theoretical precursor to the electronic digital computer which Atanasoff was soon to invent.
- #54 Interesting story of how Atanasoff came up with the stroke of genius to design his computer the way he did. He’d been thinking about it for a long time, convinced there had to be a way of doing math mechanically and thus save his PhD students at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University) in Ames, Iowa, from wasting time on math when they could be doing more interesting work in Physics. One evening in the winter of 1937, the problem proved particularly taxing for him, so he did what he was accustomed to doing in situations such as this: he got into his car and drove at high speeds for several hours, thus effectively clearing his mind. Eventually he crossed into the neighboring state of Illinois and stopped at a bar where he ordered a draft of liquid refreshment (bourbon). This had a wondrous effect on his state of mind, enabling him to think with a calm clarity that led step-by-step to coherent conclusions about the design of his electronic digital computer. Back at the lab, in the Spring of 1939, he hired Clifford Berry, an bright electrical engineering student, and together they invented the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the ABC. Within a year, the basic machine was completed and a paper written documenting its design. The paper was forwarded to the university’s patent lawyer. With World War II well underway, Atanasoff was given leave from the university to join the Naval Ordnance Laboratory for defense-related work. Work on the ABC came to a halt. The patent was never filed….
- #55 Dr. Clifford Berry had a distinguished career of his own outside of contribution in the invention of the electronic digital computer. He was issued 19 patents in the area of mass spectrometry, 11 patents in various areas of vacuum and electronics and, at the time of his death, had 13 patents pending. He died suddenly on October 30, 1963.
- #56 The ABC was a digital computer, so-called because it processed data in discrete, digital units (the digits 1 and 0). It also used the binary (base 2) number system in computation, the results being converted to and from decimal (base 10) for the purposes of human consumption. Being binary, the data could easily be represented electronically since switches naturally have two states—on and off—which lend themselves to representing the numbers or values 1 and 0. The ABC used vacuum tubes, punched cards and a memory device that looked like a drum (shown in the pictures on the slide being held by Atanasoff and as it was located in the working machine).
- #57 Another little known story in the history of computers relates the work of the government boffins in World War II Britain, Turing included. Turing made a major contribution to the development of a sophisticated computing machine called the Colossus which was used to help crack the codes of the German Enigma Machine. The story didn’t come out till the 1970s because it was top secret, for obvious reasons. You can read more about cryptography in a fascinating book written by Simon Singh: THE CODE BOOK. The Secret History of Codes and Code-Breaking . Those of you interested in learning more about cryptography and even using cryptography to protect your privacy can work your way through our tutorial on PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) which you will find available free of charge online at http://www.pitt.edu/~poole/PGPintro.htm.
- #58 J. Presper Eckert (at right in the picture on this slide) and John Mauchly were professors in the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Mauchly invited himself to Atanasoff’s home for a long weekend in order to check out the ABC. Atanasoff made him welcome, showed him his machine, and gave him a copy of the paper describing the workings of the machine that already had been filed with the Iowa State College’s patent lawyer. Mauchly returned to Pennsylvania and, together with Eckert, designed and built the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Defense and delivered in 1946. Eckert and Mauchly successfully filed for the patent as inventors of the electronic digital computer, ignoring Atanasoff’s work. Some thirty years later, in 1972, this injustice was rectified when Honeywell (for Atanasoff) successfully challenged Sperry Rand (the company that acquired Eckert and Mauchly’s patent), and Atanasoff and Berry were duly credited as being the inventors of the electronic digital computer. Mauchly died in 1980. Eckert died in 1995, one week before the nonogenarian Atanasoff. You might say that Atanasoff had the last laugh.
- #59 The ENIAC: 30 tons, 18,000 vacuum tubes, with the computing power of little more than the modern calculator…..