Unit 2- components of a computer system
Six items- people, procedures, hardware, software, data, communication.
People
People use computers by first creating them. They use them in order to be more productive than they were before. They can be used in virtually every any situation for any purpose. Many different people use computers and many different levels, from entry level users who merely use computers to play solitaire, to those who use them every day to do their job, and finally those who use them on a more interactive level which could consist of creating or developing. We also discussed the complications involved with them. By far the most influential factor to the success or failure of computer interactions is the human emotion. Computers do not have feelings and therefore have no sympathy to the user who could be having a good day. The emotions of a human from one minute to the next could change and thereby affect the performance, output, and input between the computer and the human. For example, if I am having a great day at work, I will most likely produce good work. If on the other hand, I am having a horrible day, my work will reflect.
Hardware
Hardware is the physical parts of the computer like the CPU or the modem.Hardware performs five main functions: receiving input, the actual processing/computing, giving output, storage, and protecting the rest of the hardware. Mice and keyboards are examples input devices. Printers and monitors represent output. Hard drives perform storage, and the processor and motherboard for processing
Software
Systems software manages the computers internal resources and controls the operation of the computer. Two types of system hardware are drivers and operating systems. A driver is a program that controls a peripheral device. The driver lets the computer and the device, such as a mouse or CD-ROM, to communicate and understand information sent between the two of them. Operating systems are programs that control the basic functioning of a computer. The operating system is responsible for running and storing programs and managing all of the input, output, and processes on the computer. Operating systems have four main components: process management, input/output, memory management, and the file system. Process management includes running all of the usable software on a computer and when each one is running. Input/output is just that: the operating system controls where input and output goes to the right place. You wouldn't want the output from the DVD-ROM going to the printer instead the speakers and monitor. The memory managers purpose in the universe is to keep track of what parts of the memory are in use and not in use, as well as allocating the memory to programs that are running and to stop when the program stops. It wouldn't make sense for the game you just turned off to keep using the computers resources. Memory management also handles swapping between the main memory and the hard disk when the main memory is too small for whatever process(es) the computer is running. Finally there are file systems, which manage the various things stored on a computer such as a word document.
Communications
Anything that sends information back and forth is considered to be communications. This does not have to from machine to machine, it also includes the means that computers send information to and from other parts of itself. Sending the information from a 250MB zip disk to the memory or hardrive are also ways that communications are manifest. There are currently two recognized types of information sendings, analog and digital. Digital exists only in two states, on and off (one and zero) and is more easily stored and barely suffers from distortions. Analog transmission involves a series of continuously varying states and is easily distorted along the way.
Procedures
Procedures are the way that the user knows how to use the computer. They tell the user how the thing works and how to go about controlling it. Without procedures you would have people inserting strawberries into the CD-ROM and expecting toast to come out or, more realistically, having people not save their documents before closing them and expecting their 4000 page manuscript to still be there when they turn the computer back on. Without procedures, the user can have little understanding of what the computer can do and how to get the computer to do it.
Data
The raw material to be processed by the computer into information.
Unit One
Unit Three
Unit Four
Unit Five
Unit Six
OS Paper
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