CIT 101 ( COMPUTER IN SOCIETY ) MODULE 1 (UNIT 1) SUMMARY

Hello Everyone, i hope yesterday lecture was very interesting...? if yes... we are going to today's topic on our book COMPUTER IN SOCIETY.

What is a Computer?

We normally  says computer is an electronic machine that accept data, processes data and gives out information...

However, the modern computer is basically an electronic device which can respond to commands.

A modern computer is ready  to receive either a set of instructions from the operator or a program, and then carry out the required tasks.

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In this century we are now, without the development of the computer, our modern world of high technology would not have developed. 

We make use of computers in this modern day. We use them in many industries of which we use them in the following:

• Banking transactions (Autobanks)

• Household accounts (Budgets)

• Automated manufacturing (Producing a modern car)

• Communications (Telephone systems)

• Shopping (Buying over the Internet)

In the modern computer world, there are two main types of computers in use, namely ANALOG and DIGITAL. Here we concentrate mainly on the digital computer, which solves problems by performing sums and by dealing with each number digit by digit.

The Digital Computer

A digital computer bases its whole operation on the ability to determine if a switch (sometimes called a gate), is either open or closed. As this type of computer can only recognized two states, its microcircuits are either on or off, while in the case of letters and numbers only O’s and 1’s are used (e.g. the letter “a” would be represented to the PC as something similar to “00110101).

Computer performs a relatively simple task,  There are 2 things that makes a computer special, the first is the speed at which a computer performs this simple task and the second is the amount (volume) of data the computer handles at any one time.

The speed of a computer is  called “clock speed” and it can be measured in millions of cycles per second (megahertz or MHZ), which means that a computer with a clock speed of 66 MHz, for example an 80486DX 66MHz, is capable of executing 66 million operations each second.

A computer performs checks on groups of switches, increasing the number of operations it can recognize in each cycle, 

Note:

which means a computer checking two switches at one time, can execute one of four instructions at each cycles.

History of the Digital Computer

In 1946 computer saw the light of the first general-purpose all-electronic computer called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrators and Computer). ENIC contained in excess of 18,000 vacuum tubes and had a speed of several hundred multiplications per minute.

The first commercially available electronic computer was called

UNIVAC 1. This computer marked the beginning of the computer era.

By 1960 transistors had replaced vacuum tubes as logical components of a computer.  computer components used less power and had a much longer life span. Computers using this technology were referred to as second generation computers.

Early 1960s  they discover the integrated circuit  which was developed and allowed  many transistors to be fabricated on one circuit board with inter- connecting wires plated in place.

Computers developed in the 1970s were able check eight switches at every cycle. Since then the development of processors that can handle16, 32 and 64 bits of data at a time had increased the speed of computers.

Different Types of Computers

It is obvious that we are now in a computerize world the digital computer world there are currently different types of categories, which are based on price and performance. Two of these are:

Personal Computer (PC’s)

A PC is a relative low-cost machine usually of desktop size (laptops, notebooks and palmtops are mush smaller).

Main Frames

A mainframe is a large expensive electronic machine with the capability of serving the needs of major business enterprises, government departments and scientific research establishments (the largest and fastest of these are called supercomputers).

This is where we are stopping for today...

See you tomorrow....have a nice day