23CSE102

Computer Hardware
Essentials 1-0-2- 2
Computer-Generations
Comput
er
A computer is a programmable machine designed to perform arithmetic and logical
operations automatically and sequentially on the input given by the user and gives the
desired output after processing.

 Computer components are divided into two major categories namely hardware and
software.

 Hardware is the machine itself and its connected devices such as monitor,
keyboard,
mouse etc.

 Software are the set of programs that make use of hardware for performing various
functions.
Characteristics of
Computers
 Speed
Computers work at an incredible speed. A powerful computer is capable of
performing about 3-4 million simple instructions per second.
 Accuracy
In addition to being fast, computers are also accurate. Errors that may
occur can
almost always be attributed to human error
 Diligence
Unlike human beings, computers are highly consistent. They do not suffer
from
human traits of boredom and tiredness resulting in lack of concentration.
Computers, therefore, are better than human beings in performing voluminous and
repetitive jobs.
 Versatility
Computers are versatile machines and are capable of performing any task as long as
it can be broken down into a series of logical steps. The presence of computers can
be seen in almost every sphere – Railway/Air reservation, Banks, Hotels, Weather
forecasting and many more.
 Storage Capacity
Today’s computers can store large volumes of data. A piece of information once
recorded in the computer, can never be forgotten and can be retrieved almost
 The Basic Structure of A Computer
System Consists of Three Parts
1. CPU
Performs arithmetic and logic operations
2. INPUT – OUTPUT DEVICES (Peripherals)
Keyboard, Monitor, Modem, Mouse, Joystick,
Speakers, Printers, etc.
3. MEMORY
Primary – directly accessible by the CPU.
Secondary – external memory for storing data.
Computer
Organization
 A computer system consists of mainly four basic units namely

 Input unit,

 Storage unit,

 Central Processing Unit

 Output unit.

Central Processing unit further includes Arithmetic logic unit and control unit.

A computer performs five major operations or functions irrespective of its size and make.
These are
 It accepts data or instructions as input,
 It stores data and instruction
 It processes data as per the instructions,
 It controls all operations inside a computer, and
 It gives results in the form of output.
Functional Units
Input Unit:

 This unit is used for entering data and programs into the computer system by the
user for processing.

Storage Unit:

 The storage unit is used for storing data and instructions before and after
processing.

Output Unit:

 The output unit is used for storing the result as output produced by the computer
after processing.

Processing:

 The task of performing operations like arithmetic and logical operations is called
processing. The Central Processing Unit (CPU) takes data and instructions from
the storage unit and makes all sorts of calculations based on the instructions
given and the type of data provided.It is then sent back to the storage unit. CPU
includes Arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and control unit (CU)
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
Arithmetic Logic Unit:

 All calculations and comparisons, based on the instructions provided, are carried
out within the ALU. It performs arithmetic functions like addition, subtraction,
multiplication, division and also logical operations like greater than, less than and
equal to etc.

Control Unit:

 Controlling of all operations like input, processing and output are performed by
control unit. It takes care of step by step processing of all operations inside the
computer.
Generation of Computers
 The first electronic computer was designed and built at the University of Pennsylvania
based on vacuum tube technology.

 Vacuum tubes were used to perform logic operations and to store data.

 Generations of computers has been divided into five according to the development of
technologies used to fabricate the processors, memories and I/O units.

 First Generation : 1945 – 55

 Second Generation : 1955 – 65

 Third Generation : 1965 – 75

 Fourth Generation : 1975 – 89

 Fifth Generation : 1989 to present

First Generation
First Generation
 ENIAC - Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator

 EDSAC – Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator

 EDVAC – Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer

 UNIVAC – Universal Automatic Computer

 IBM 701
 Vacuum tubes were used – basic arithmetic operations took few milliseconds

 Bulky and High cost

 Consume more power with limited performance

 Uses assembly language – to prepare programs. These were translated into machine
level language for execution.

 Mercury delay line memories and Electrostatic memories were used

 Fixed point arithmetic was used

 100 to 1000 fold increase in speed relative to the earlier mechanical and relay based
electromechanical technology

 Punched cards and paper tape were invented to feed programs and data and to get
results.

 Magnetic tape / magnetic drum were used as secondary memory

 Mainly used for scientific computations.

Second Generation
Second Generation
(Manufacturers – IBM 7030, Digital Data Corporation’s PDP 1/5/8 Honeywell 400)
 Transistors were used in place of vacuum tubes. (invented at AT&T Bell lab in 1947)

 Small in size

 Lesser power consumption and better performance

 Lower cost

 Magnetic ferrite core memories were used as main memory which is a random-access
nonvolatile memory

 Magnetic tapes and magnetic disks were used as secondary memory

 Hardware for floating point arithmetic operations was developed.

 Index registers were introduced which increased flexibility of programming.

 High level languages such as FORTRAN, COBOL etc. were used - Compilers were
developed to translate the high-level program into corresponding assembly language
program which was then translated into machine language.

 Separate input-output processors were developed that could operate in parallel with
CPU.

 Punched cards continued during this period also.

 1000 fold increase in speed.

 Increasingly used in business, industry and commercial organizations for preparation

of payroll, inventory control, marketing, production planning, research, scientific &
engineering analysis and design etc
Third Generation
Third Generation
System 360 Mainframe from IBM, PDP-8 Mini Computer from Digital Equipment
Corporation
 ICs were used

 Small Scale Integration and Medium Scale Integration technology were implemented
in CPU, I/O processors etc.

 Smaller & better performance

 Comparatively lesser cost

 Faster processors

 In the beginning magnetic core memories were used. Later they were replaced by
semiconductor memories (RAM & ROM)

 Introduced microprogramming
 Microprogramming, parallel processing (pipelining, multiprocessor system etc.),
multiprogramming, multi-user system (time shared system) etc. were introduced.

 Operating system software were introduced (efficient sharing of a computer system by

several user programs)

 Cache and virtual memories were introduced (Cache memory makes the main
memory appear faster than it really is. Virtual memory makes it appear larger)

 High level languages were standardized by ANSI eg. ANSI FORTRAN, ANSI
COBOL etc.

 Database management, multi-user application, online systems like closed loop process
control, airline reservation, interactive query systems, automatic industrial control etc.
emerged during this period.
Fourth Generation
Fourth Generation
Intel’s 8088,80286,80386,80486 .., Motorola’s 68000, 68030, 68040, Apple II, CRAY
I/2/X/MP etc.

 Microprocessors were introduced as CPU– Complete processors and large section of

main memory could be implemented in a single chip

 Tens of thousands of transistors can be placed in a single chip (VLSI design

implemented)

 CRT screen, laser & ink jet printers, scanners etc were developed.

 Semiconductor memory chips were used as the main memory.

 Secondary memory was composed of hard disks – Floppy disks & magnetic tapes were
used for backup memory

 Parallelism, pipelining cache memory and virtual memory were applied in a better way
 LAN and WANS were developed (where desktop work stations interconnected)

 Introduced C language and Unix OS

 Introduced Graphical User Interface

 Less power consumption

 High performance, lower cost and very compact

 Much increase in the speed of operation

Fifth Generation
Fifth Generation
IBM notebooks, Pentium PCs-Pentium 1/2/3/4/Dual core/Quad core.. SUN work stations,
Origin 2000, PARAM 10000, IBM SP/2
 Generation number beyond IV, have been used occasionally to describe some current
computer system that have a dominant organizational or application driven feature.

 Computers based on artificial intelligence are available

 Computers use extensive parallel processing, multiple pipelines, multiple processors

etc

 Massive parallel machines and extensively distributed system connected by

communication networks fall in this category.

 Introduced ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration) technology – Intel’s Pentium 4

microprocessor contains 55 million transistors millions of components on a single IC
chip.
 Superscalar processors, Vector processors, SIMD processors, 32 bit micro controllers
and embedded processors, Digital Signal Processors (DSP) etc have been developed.

 Memory chips up to 1 GB, hard disk drives up to 180 GB and optical disks up to 27
GB
are available (still the capacity is increasing)

 Object oriented language like JAVA suitable for internet programming has been
developed.

 Portable note book computers introduced

 Storage technology advanced – large main memory and disk storage available

 Introduced World Wide Web. (and other existing applications like e-mail, e Commerce,
Virtual libraries/Classrooms, multimedia applications etc.)

 New operating systems developed – Windows 95/98/XP/…, LINUX, etc.

 Got hot pluggable features – which enable a failed component to be replaced with a
new one without the need to shutdown the system, allowing the uptime of the system
to be very high.

 The recent development in the application of internet is the Grid technology which is
still in its upcoming stage.

 Quantum mechanism and nanotechnology will radically change the phase of

computers.
Computer Components
Hardware:

 Computer hardware is the collection of physical elements that constitutes a

computer system. Computer hardware refers to the physical parts or components
of a computer such as the monitor, mouse, keyboard, computer data storage,
hard drive disk (HDD), system unit (graphic cards, sound cards, memory,
motherboard and chips), etc.

Software

 Software is a generic term for organized collections of computer data and

instructions, often broken into two major categories: system software that
provides the basic non-task-specific functions of the computer, and application
software which is used by users to accomplish specific tasks.
Software Types
A.System software is responsible for controlling, integrating, and managing the
individual hardware components of a computer system so that other software and the
users of the system see it as a functional unit without having to be concerned with the
low-level details such as transferring data from memory to disk, or rendering text onto a
display. Generally, system software consists of an operating system and some
fundamental utilities such as disk formatters, file managers, display managers, text
editors, user authentication (login) and management tools, and networking and device
control software.

B.Application software is used to accomplish specific tasks other than just running the
computer system. Application software may consist of a single program, such as an image
viewer; a small collection of programs that work closely together to accomplish a task,
such as a spreadsheet or text processing system; a larger collection of related but
independent programs and packages that have a common user interface or shared data
format, such as Microsoft Office, which consists of closely integrated word processor,
spreadsheet, database, etc.; or a software system, such as a database management
system, which is a collection of fundamental programs that may provide some service to a
variety of other independent applications.
System Software Application Software
Computer software, or just software is a Application software, also known as an
general term primarily used for digitally application or an "app", is computer
stored data such as computer programs and software designed to help the user to
other kinds of information read and written perform specific tasks.
by computers. App comes under computer
software though it has a wide scope now.

1) Microsoft Windows 1) Opera (Web Browser)

2) Linux 2) Microsoft Word (Word Processing)
3) Unix 3) Microsoft Excel (Spreadsheet software)
4) Mac OSX 4) MySQL (Database Software)
5) DOS 5) Microsoft PowerPoint (Presentation
Software)
6) Adobe Photoshop (Graphics Software)

Generally, users do not interact with system Users always interact with application
software as it works in the background. software while doing different activities.

System software can run independently of Application software cannot run without
the application software. the presence of the system software.
Computers Classification
Computers can be generally classified by size and power as follows, though there is
Considerable overlap:

 Personal computer: A small, single-user computer based on a microprocessor. In

addition to the microprocessor, a personal computer has a keyboard for entering data,
a monitor for displaying information, and a storage device for saving data.

 Workstation : A powerful, single-user computer. A workstation is like a personal

computer, but it has a more powerful microprocessor and a higher-quality monitor.

 Minicomputer : A multi-user computer capable of supporting from 10 to hundreds of

users simultaneously.

 Mainframe : A powerful multi-user computer capable of supporting many hundreds or

thousands of users simultaneously.

 Supercomputer : An extremely fast computer that can perform hundreds of millions of

instructions per second.
Overview of Computer Hardware
• Motherboard
• CPU
• RAM
• Harddisk
• CD-ROM
• Floppy Disk
• Display Card
• Sound Card
• LAN Card
 Computer Diagram
The Block Diagram as shown below is a representation of
the fundamental pieces of any computer system. So
whether it is a PC or MAC or some other type of computer
it will have most if not all of these components.