INTRODUCTION:

➢ A computer is a fast calculating device that can perform arithmetic operations. It is not
just a calculating device. It can perform any kind of work involving arithmetic and logical
operations on data. It gets the data through an input device, processes it as per the
instructions given and gives the information as output.
➢ Hardware refers to any physical component of a computer. In today’s computer industry,
a wide variety of hardware components are available. Hardware components are
classified according to their functional use within a computer system. They can be broadly
classified into three categories namely input devices, output devices and storage
devices.

ANATOMY OF COMPUTER
The internal design of computers differs from one model to another. But the basic
components of computer remain the same for all models.
To function properly, a computer needs both ',

• Hardware
• Software

o Hardware - consists of the mechanical and electronic devices which we can see and
touch. Key Board, Monitor, DVD are some examples for Computer Hardware.
o Software - consists of programs, the operating systems and the data that reside in the
memory and storage devices. JAVA, Microsoft Office, Open Office are some examples
for Computer Software.

A computer mainly performs the following four functions.

1.Receive input – accept information from outside through various input devices like
keyboard, mouse etc.
2.Process information – perform arithmetic or logical operations on the information.

3.Produce output – communicate information to the outside world through output

devices like monitor, printer etc.
4. Store information – store the information in storage devices like hard disk, compact
disk etc.
 A computer has the following three main components.
a. Input/ Output Unit
Computer is a machine that processes the input data according to a given set of
instructions and gives the output. The unit used for getting the data and instructions into the
computer and displaying or printing output is known as input/ output unit. Keyboard is the
main input device while the monitor is the main output device.
b. Central Processing Unit
Central processing Unit (CPU) is the main component or ‘brain’ of the computer which
performs all the processing of input data. In microcomputers, the CPU is built on a single chip
or Integrated Circuit (IC) and is called Microprocessor.
The CPU consists of the following distinct parts:
• Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU)- is responsible for all arithmetic operations like addition,
subtraction, multiplication and divisions as well as logical operations such as less than,
equal to and greater than.
• Control Unit (CU) - is responsible for controlling the transfer of data and instructions
among other units of a computer. It is considered as the ‘Central Nervous System’ of
computer as it manages and coordinates all the units of the computer. It obtains the
instructions from the memory, interprets them and directs the operation of the
computer.
• Registers - are small highspeed circuits which are used to store data, instructions and
memory addresses, when ALU performs arithmetic and logical operations. Depending on
the processor’s capability, the number and type of registers vary from one CPU to another
• Buses - Data is stored as a unit of eight bits in a register. Each bit is transferred from one
register to another by means of a separate wire. This group of eight wires which is used
as a common way to transfer data between registers is known as a bus. Bus is a
connection between two components to transmit signal between them. Bus is of three
major types namely data bus, control bus and address bus.
• Clock
c. Memory Unit -is used to store the data, instructions and information before, during and
after the processing by ALU. It is actually a work area (physically a collection of integrated
circuits) within the computer where the CPU stores the data and instructions.
Two types of Memory:
1. Read Only Memory (ROM) - is an essential component of the memory unit. The
memory which has essential instructions is known as Read Only Memory. This
memory is permanent and is not erased when the system is switched off. The memory
capacity of ROM varies from 64 KB to 256 KB depending on the model of computer.
 2. Random Access Memory (RAM) - is used to store data and instructions during the
execution of programs. Contrary to ROM, RAM is temporary and is erased when the
computer is switched off. RAM is a read/ write type of memory and thus can be read
and written by the user. As it is possible to randomly use any location of this memory,
it is known as random access memory. The memory capacity of RAM varies from 640
KB to several megabytes with different models of computer.

➢ An input device is any machine that feeds data, information and instructions into a
computer.
Two broad categories of Input Devices:
• Basic Input Devices

The input devices which are essential to operate a PC are called basic input devices. These
devices are always required for basic input operations. These devices include keyboard and
mouse.

• Special Input Devices

The input devices which are not essential to operate a PC are called special input devices.
These devices are used for various special purposes and are generally required for basic input
operations.
These devices include:
▪ Trackball
▪ Light Pen
▪ Touch Screen
▪ Joystick
▪ Digitizer
▪ Scanner
▪ Optical Mark Reader (OMR)
▪ Bar Code Reader (BCR)
▪ Optical Character Reader (OCR)
▪ Magnetic Ink Character
▪ Recognition (MICR)
▪ Voice-Input Device

➢ Keyboard is the most common input device used for manual data entry. Computer
keyboards are similar to electric-typewriter keyboards but contain additional keys.
 The keys on computer keyboards are classified as follows:
o Letter Keys: These are the 26 letters of English alphabet arranged as in a typewriter.
o Digit Keys: There are two sets of digit keys; one on the second row from the top of the
keys just as in a typewriter and the other is a numeric key pad at the bottom right which
allows quick entry of numbers with the fingers of one hand.
o Special character keys: These are characters such as <, >, ?, /, {, }, [, ], (, ), ., “, @, #, $, %,
&, *, etc.
o Non-printable control keys: These are used for backspacing, going to the next line,
tabulation, moving the cursor up or down, insert, delete characters etc. There is also a
space bar at the bottom for leaving a space.
o Function keys: These are labeled F1, F2 up to F15 and when pressed invoke programs
stored in the computer

➢ Mouse is a device that controls the movement of the cursor on the display screen. It is a
small object you can roll along a hard, flat surface. Its name is derived from its shape
which looks like a mouse.
➢ As you move the mouse, the pointer on the display screen moves in the same direction.
They are mechanical, opto mechanical and optical.

➢ Trackball is an input device which is mostly used in notebook or laptop computer instead
of a mouse. This is a ball which is half inserted and moving fingers on the ball, pointer can
be moved. Trackball is considered better than mouse because it requires little arm
movement and less desktop space.

➢ Light pen is a pointing device which is similar to a pen. It is used to select a displayed
menu item or draw pictures on the monitor screen. It consists of a photocell and an optical
system placed in a small tube. When the tip of a light pen is pressed, its photocell sensing
element detects the screen location and sends the corresponding signal to the CPU.

➢ Touch Screen: Some special VDU devices have touch sensitive screens. These screens are
sensitive to human fingers and act as tactile devices. Using touch screen, the user can
point to a selection on the screen instead of pressing keys. Touch screen helps the user in
getting the information quickly.

➢ Joystick is a pointing device which is used to move cursor position on a monitor screen.
Joystick is a stick having a spherical ball at its both lower and upper ends. The lower
spherical ball moves in a socket.
Joystick can be moved in all four directions. The function of joystick is similar to that of a mouse.
It is mainly used in Computer Aided Designing (CAD) and playing computer games.
 ➢ Digitizer is an input device which converts analog information into digital form. Digitizer
can convert a signal from the television or camera into a series of numbers that could be
stored in a computer.
Digitizer is also known as Tablet or Graphics Tablet because it converts graphics and pictorial data
into binary inputs. A graphic tablet as digitizer is used for doing fine works of drawing.
➢ Scanner works more like a photocopy machine. It is used when some information is
available on a paper and it is to be transferred to the hard disk of the computer for further
manipulation. Scanner captures images from the source which are then converted into
the digital form that can be stored on the disc.
➢ Optical Mark Reader (OMR):
OMR is a special type of optical scanner used to recognize the type of mark made by pen
or pencil. It is used where one out of a few alternatives is to be selected and marked. It is
specially used for checking the answer sheets of examinations having multiple choice
questions.
➢ Bar Code Reader (BCR): BCR is an optical scanner used for reading bar-coded data (data
in the form of light and dark lines) Bar coded data is generally used in labeling goods,
numbering of books etc. Bar Code Reader scans a bar code image, converts it into an
alphanumeric value which is then fed to the computer to which the Bar Code Reader is
connected.
➢ Optical Character Reader (OCR): OCR is an optical scanner used to read a printed text.
OCR scans text optically character by character, converts them into a machine-readable
code and stores the text on the system memory. It is used for reading of passenger tickets,
computer printed bills of credit card companies and reading of ZIP codes in postal
services.
➢ Magnetic Ink Character Reader (MICR): MICR is generally used in banks because of a large
number of cheques to be processed every day. The bank’s code number and cheque
number are printed on the cheques with a special type of ink that contains particles of
magnetic material that are machine readable.
➢ Voice-input devices are the latest input devices that can recognize the human voice.
Microphone is a voice input device to input sound which is then stored in digital form. It
is used for various applications like adding sound to a multimedia presentation or for
mixing music.

OUTPUT/DISPLAY DEVICES
➢ Output devices are hardware components which are used to display or print the
processed information. Output devices include monitor (display screen), printer, plotter,
speaker, computer output microfilm etc.
▪ Monitor is commonly known as Visual Display Unit (VDU) and it is the main output device
of a computer. It forms images from tiny dots, called pixels that are arranged in a
rectangular form. The sharpness of the image depends upon the number of pixels.
 There are different kinds of monitors depending upon the number of pixels. Depending
upon the resolution monitors can be classified as follows:

▪ CGA (Colour Graphics Adapter)

▪ MDA (Monochrome Display Adapter)
▪ HGA (Hercules Graphics Adapter)
▪ EGA (Enhanced Graphics Adapter)
▪ VGA (Video Graphics Adapter)
▪ SVGA (Super Video Graphics Adapter)

➢ Impact Printers:
The printers that print the characters by striking against the ribbon and onto the paper are called
impact printers.

▪ Impact printers are of two types

1. Character Printers -These printers print one character at a time.
These printers are of two types
o Daisy Wheel Printers: These printers print the characters by a mechanism that
uses a plastic or metal hub with spokes called daisy wheel.
o Dot Matrix Printers: These printers print the characters by putting dots onto the
paper.
2. Line Printers - These printers print one line at a time. Their printing speed is much more
than character printers.
They are of two types
o Drum Printers: These printers print the line by rotating drum having a ring of
characters for each print position.
o Chain Printers: These printers print the line by rotating chain having ring characters
for each print position.

➢ Non-Impact Printers:
The printers that print the characters without striking against the ribbon and onto the paper are
called Non-Impact Printers. These printers print a complete page at a time.
Non-Impact Printers are of two types
o Laser Printers - These printers look and work like photocopier. They are based on laser
technology. In these printers, a laser beam is used to write the image on a paper. There
are many models of laser printers depending upon the speed and number of dots printed.
o Inkjet Printers- These printers print the characters by spraying the paper with electrically
charged ink. These printers give better quality than character printers but not better than
laser printers. They have an option of using colour cartridges for multi-colour printing.

Other Output Devices

Plotter - Plotter is used to print high quality graphics and drawings. It is generally used for
printing/drawing graphical images such as charts, drawings, maps etc. of engineering and
scientific applications.
Some important types of plotters are:

a) Flat Bed Plotters: These plotters print the graphical images by moving the pen on stationary
flat surface material.
b) Drum Plotters: These plotters print graphical images by moving both the pen and the drum
having paper.
c) Inkjet Plotters: These plotters use inkjet in place of pen. They are faster than flat-bed plotters
and can print multi-coloured large drawings.

➢ Speakers are popular output devices used with computer systems. They receive audio
input from the computer’s sound card and produce audio output in the form of sound
waves. Most computer speaker are active speakers.
➢ Computer Output Microfilm: COM is a technique to produce output on a microfilm
media. A microfilm is a continuous film strip that can store several thousands of document
pages. A microfilm card is a 4x6 inch film sheet which can store several hundred pages.
The process of producing microfilm or microfiche takes place on a special COM unit.

STORAGE DEVICES
Memory units are the internal storage areas of a computer. The term “memory” refers to data
storage that comes in the form of chips and the word “storage” is used for memory that exists
on tapes or disks. The term memory is usually used as a short form for physical memory which
refers to the actual chips capable of holding data.
Some of the common storage devices are explained below.
✓ Hard disk is a magnetic disk on which you can store computer data. The term hard is used
to distinguish it from a soft or floppy disk. Hard disks hold more data and are faster than
floppy disks. Hard disk is fixed inside the computer and is not easily removable.
✓ There are different types of hard disks depending upon their storage capacities. Storage
capacities of hard disks range from 10 MB to several GBs.

✓ Floppy Disk (FD) is a storage device which is small, flexible and easily removable. It is
made of plastic disk coated with magnetic material which is sealed inside a square plastic
jacket. It is called “Floppy” because it is soft having flexible physical properly.
✓ There are different types of floppies depending upon their sizes and storage capacities.
Floppies come in two basic sizes namely 5¼" and 3½".

✓ Compact Disk (CD) is a storage device used to store data, information and software which
can be read only and not be changed or erased. It is an optical read only memory made
up of resin. Therefore, it is actually called Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM).
The information is stored on CDs by using an expensive drive called CD-ROM drive. CD-
ROM drives can be either internal or external.
✓ A single CD-ROM has the storage capacity of 700 floppy disks, enough memory to store
about 3,00,000 text pages.

➢ WORM (Write-once Read-many) is a type of compact disk which can be recorded only
once and not erased. It can store more data than a CD-ROM, generally measured in
gigabytes.
➢ Digital Versatile Disk: read only memory (DVD-ROM) is a read only digital versatile disk
commonly used for storing large software applications. It is similar to compact disk read
only memory (CD-ROM) but has a large capacity. A DVD-ROM stores around 4.38 GB of
data whereas a CD-ROM usually stores 650 MB of data.
➢ Pen drive is a portable device which allows user to transfer data (text, images, videos etc)
to and from computer quickly. Users can easily read and write the data in the pen drive
by plugging it into USB port on the computer. Pen drives are quite compact and fit easily
into the pocket.
➢ Storage capacity of Pen Drive can vary from few megabytes to over 100 megabytes. Pen
Drive consists of an electronic circuit board and a USB connection that connects the drive
to the computer. It is a memory chip which holds the data.
TYPES OF COMPUTERS
We can classify computers based on the following criteria.
1. According to purpose
According to purpose, computers can be classified into two types.
o General Purpose Computers: Computers that follow instructions for general
requirements such as sales analysis, financial accounting, invoicing, management
information etc. are called general purpose computers. Almost all computers used in
offices for commercial, educational and other applications are general purpose
computers.
o Special Purpose Computers: Computers that are designed to perform special tasks
like scientific applications and research, weather forecasting, space applications etc.
are called special purpose computers.
2. According to technology used

According to technology used, computers can be classified into three types.

o Analog computers are special purpose computers that represent and store data in
continuously varying physical quantities such as current, voltage or frequency. These
computers are programmed for measuring physical quantities like pressure,
temperature, speed etc. and to perform computation on these measurements.
Examples for analog computers are thermometer and speedometer.
o Digital computers are mainly general purposes computers that represent and store
data in discrete quantities and numbers. In these computers all processing is done in
terms of numeric representation (binary digits) of data and information.
o Hybrid computers incorporate the technology of both analog and digital computers.
These computers store and process analog signals which have been converted into
discrete numbers using analog-to-digital converters.
3. According to size and storage capacity
According to size and storage capacity, computers can be classified into four types.
o Super computer is the biggest and fastest computer designed mainly for complex
scientific applications. It has many central processing units (CPUs) which operate in
parallel to make it as a fastest computer
o Mainframe computers are also large and fast computers but smaller and slower than
super computers. They are used in a centralized location where many terminals (input
and output devices) are connected with one CPU and thus allow different users to
share the single CPU.
 o Mini computers are medium-scale, smaller and generally slower than mainframe
computers. Like mainframe they have many terminals which are connected with one
CPU and can support many users. They are used in applications where processing can
be distributed among several mini computers rather than using a mainframe
computer. Some examples for mini computers are PDD-1, DEC Micro VAX and IBM
AS/400.
o A micro-computer is the smallest digital computer which uses a microprocessor as its
CPU. Micro-processor is a single chip CPU. Micro computer is popularly known as
personal computer (PC). It can be used both as a stand-alone machine and a terminal
in a multiuser environment. A powerful micro-computer may be used as a substitute
for mini or mainframe computer.
Micro computers are either of desktop model or portable model.
✓ Portable computers can be carried from one place to another. Examples for portable
computers are laptops and notebook computers.
✓ Note book computers are smaller and lighter than laptop computers. Desktop computers
fit on a desktop and are widely used in offices and homes.

Computer Troubleshooting
Some of the errors that generally we come across are:
o Compiler Error: The error occurring when the command runs in the software. One
example of such kind is bad instruction; source/files:8: Error: bad instruction 'sdd r0, r1',
This error occurs when you use a command that doesn't exist. First of all, check that you
haven't mistyped the command.
o Load Errors: Load errors are errors that occur that prevent your Operating System from
giving any output. This can be the hardest to diagnose and fix. Unfortunately, by their
nature, they give off no indication of what is wrong
o Run Time Errors: Behind load errors, runtime errors are the hardest to diagnose and fix.
These occur when your Operating System just doesn't do what you want.
Other than this, the basic trouble shooting steps involves the following:
1. Close all the programs which are opened in the active window
2. Make sure about the connectivity of the devices (checking the status of the cords)
3. Check the message given by the computer
4. You can search for the help from the Help Menu
5. Try to restart the system after checking all the connections
6. If the problem exist further, then you may have to approach hardware support