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Introduction to Computer System Representation of Basic Information The basic functional units of computer are made of electronics circuit and it works with electrical signal. We provide input to the computer in form of electrical signal and get the output in form of electrical signal. There are two basic types of electrical signals, namely, analog and digital. The analog signals are continuous in nature and digital signals are discrete in nature. The electronic device that works with continuous signals is known as analog device and the electronic device that works with discrete signals is known as digital device. In present days most of the computers are digital in nature and we will deal with Digital Computer in this course. Computer is a digital device, which works on two levels of signal. We say these two levels of signal as High and Low. The High-level signal basically corresponds to some high-level signal (say 5 Volt or 12 Volt) and Low-level signal basically corresponds to Low-level signal (say 0 Volt). This is one convention, which is known as positive logic. There are others convention also like negative logic. Since Computer is a digital electronic device, we have to deal with two kinds of electrical signals. But while designing a new computer system or understanding the working principle of computer, it is always difficult to write or work with 0V or 5V. To make it convenient for understanding, we use some logical value, say, LOW (L) - will represent 0V and HIGH (H) - will represent 5V Computer is used to solve mainly numerical problems. Again it is not convenient to work with symbolic representation. For that purpose we move to numeric representation. In this convention, we use 0 to represent LOW and 1 to represent HIGH. 0 1 means means LOW HIGH To know about the working principle of computer, we use two numeric symbols only namely 0 and 1. All the functionalities of computer can be captured with 0 and 1 and its theoretical background corresponds to two valued Boolean algebra. With the symbol 0 and 1, we have a mathematical system, which is knows as binary number system. Basically binary number system is used to represent the information and manipulation of information in computer. This information is basically strings of 0s and 1s. 1

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The smallest unit of information that is represented in computer is known as Bit (Binary Digit ), which is either 0 or 1. Four bits together is known as Nibble, and Eight bits together is known as Byte. Computer Organization and Architecture Computer technology has made incredible improvement in the past half century. In the early part of computer evolution, there were no stored-program computer, the computational power was less and on the top of it the size of the computer was a very huge one. Today, a personal computer has more computational power, more main memory, more disk storage, smaller in size and it is available in affordable cost. This rapid rate of improvement has come both from advances in the technology used to build computers and from innovation in computer design. In this course we will mainly deal with the innovation in computer design. The task that the computer designer handles is a complex one: Determine what attributes are important for a new machine, and then design a machine to maximize performance while staying within cost constraints. This task has many aspects, including instruction set design, functional organization, logic design, and implementation. While looking for the task for computer design, both the terms computer organization and computer architecture come into picture. It is difficult to give precise definition for the terms Computer Organization and Computer Architecture. But while describing computer system, we come across these terms, and in literature, computer scientists try to make a distinction between these two terms. Computer architecture refers to those parameters of a computer system that are visible to a programmer or those parameters that have a direct impact on the logical execution of a program. Examples of architectural attributes include the instruction set, the number of bits used to represent different data types, I/O mechanisms, and techniques for addressing memory. Computer organization refers to the operational units and their interconnections that realize the architectural specifications. Examples of organizational attributes include those hardware details transparent to the programmer, such as control signals, interfaces between the computer and peripherals, and the memory technology used. In this course we will touch upon all those factors and finally come up with the concept how these attributes contribute to build a complete computer system. 2

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Basic Computer Model and different units of Computer The model of a computer can be described by four basic units in high level abstraction which is shown in figure 1.1. These basic units are:  Central Processor Unit  Input Unit  Output Unit  Memory Unit Figure 1.1: Basic Unit of a Computer A. Central Processor Unit (CPU): Central processor unit consists of two basic blocks: • • The program control unit has a set of registers and control circuit to generate control signals. The execution unit or data processing unit contains a set of registers for storing data and an Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU) for execution of arithmetic and logical operations. In addition, CPU may have some additional registers for temporary storage of data. B. Input Unit: With the help of input unit data from outside can be supplied to the computer. Program or data is read into main storage from input device or secondary storage under the control of CPU input instruction. Example of input devices: Keyboard, Mouse, Hard disk, Floppy disk, CD-ROM drive etc. C. Output Unit: With the help of output unit computer results can be provided to the user or it can be stored in storage device permanently for future use. Output data from main storage go to output device under the control of CPU output instructions. 3

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Example of output devices: Printer, Monitor, Plotter, Hard Disk, Floppy Disk etc. D. Memory Unit: Memory unit is used to store the data and program. CPU can work with the information stored in memory unit. This memory unit is termed as primary memory or main memory module. These are basically semi conductor memories. There are two types of semiconductor memories • • Volatile Memory : RAM (Random Access Memory). Non-Volatile Memory: ROM (Read only Memory), PROM (Programmable ROM) EPROM (Erasable PROM), EEPROM (Electrically Erasable PROM). Secondary Memory : There is another kind of storage device, apart from primary or main memory, which is known as secondary memory. Secondary memories are non volatile memory and it is used for permanent storage of data and program. Example of secondary memories: Hard Disk, Floppy Disk, Magnetic Tape (These are magnetic devices), CD-ROM (is optical device), Thumb drive (or pen drive) (is semiconductor memory) Digital and Analog Signals Signals carry information and are defined as any physical quantity that varies with time, space, or any other independent variable. For example, a sine wave whose amplitude varies with respect to time or the motion of a particle with respect to space can be considered as signals. A system can be defined as a physical device that performs an operation on a signal. For example, an amplifier is used to amplify the input signal amplitude. In this case, the amplifier performs some operation(s) on the signal, which has the effect of increasing the amplitude of the desired information-bearing signal. Signals can be categorized in various ways; for example discrete and continuous time domains. Discrete-time signals are defined only on a discrete set of times. Continuous-time signals are often referred to as continuous signals even when the signal functions are not continuous; an example is a square-wave signal. 4

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