Computer System 3

are shown in Figure 1.3. A braille display monitor is

useful for a visually challenged person to understand
the textual output generated by computers.
A printer is the most commonly used device to get
output in physical (hardcopy) form. Three types of
commonly used printers are inkjet, laserjet and dot
matrix. Now-a-days, there is a new type of printer
called 3D-printer, which is used to build physical A punched card is a
piece of stiff paper that
replica of a digital 3D design. These printers are being
stores digital data in
used in manufacturing industries to create prototypes the form of holes at
of products. Their usage is also being explored in the predefined positions.
medical field, particularly for developing body organs.

1.2 Evolution of Computer

From the simple calculator to a modern day powerful
data processor, computing devices have evolved in a
relatively short span of time. The evolution of computing
devices in shown through a timeline in Figure 1.4
EDVAC/ENIAC
Pascaline John Von Neumann introduced
Blaize Pascal invented a mechanical the concept of stored program
calculator known as Pascal calculator computer which was capable of
or Pascaline to do addition and storing data as well as program
subtraction of two numbers directly in the memory. The EDVAC and
and multiplication and division through then the ENIAC computers were
repeated addition and subtraction. developed based on this concept.

Tabulating Machine Integrated Circuit

Herman Hollerith designed An Integrated Circuit (IC) is
1642 a tabulating machine for 1945 a silicon chip which contains
summarising the data stored entire electronic circuit on a
on the punched card. It is very small area. The size of
computer drastically reduced
step towards programming. because of ICs.

1890 1970

1834 1947

Analytic Engine Transistor

Charles Babbage invented Vacuum tubes were
analytical engine, a replaced by transistors
developed at Bell Labs,
500 BC mechanical computing device 1937
for inputting, processing, using semiconductor
storing and displaying the materials.
output, which is considered
to form the basis of modern
computers.
Abacus Turing Machine
Computing is attributed to The Turing machine concept was a
the invention of ABACUS general purpose programmable
almost 3000 years ago. It machine that was capable of solving
was a mechanical device any problem by executing the
capable of doing simple program stored on the punched cards.
arithmetic calculations only.
Figure 1.4: Timeline showing key inventions in computing technology

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 4 Computer Science – Class xi

The Von Neumann architecture is shown in Figure

1.5. It consists of a Central Processing Unit (CPU)
for processing arithmetic and logical instructions, a
memory to store data and programs, input and output
devices and communication
channels to send or receive the
output data. Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
is the first binary programmable
Figure 1.5: Von Neumann architecture for computer based on Von Neumann
the computer architecture.
During the 1970s, Large Scale Integration (LSI) of
electronic circuits allowed integration of complete
CPU on a single chip, called microprocessor. Moore’s
Law predicted exponential growth in the number
In 1965, Intel co-
of transistors that could be assembled in a single
founder Gordon Moore microchip. In 1980s, the processing power of computers
introduced Moore’s increased exponentially by integrating around 3 million
Law which predicted components on a small-sized chip termed as Very
that the number of
transistors on a chip Large Scale Integration (VLSI). Further advancement in
would double every two technology has made it feasible to fabricate high density
years while the costs of transistors and other components (approx 106
would be halved.
components) on a single IC called Super Large Scale
Integration (SLSI) as shown in Figure 1.6.
IBM introduced its first personal computer (PC) for
the home user in 1981 and Apple introduced Macintosh

10,000,000,000
Number of Transistors
per Integrated Circuit

1,000,000,000 Core 2 DUO Core i7

100,000,000 Intel Microprocessors Pentium IV
Pentium II Pentium III
10,000,000 Pentium
1,000,000 486
486
100,000 Invention of the 386
Transistor 286
10,000 8086
1,000 4004
100 Doubles every 2 years
10
1
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Figure 1.6: Exponential increase in number of transistors used in ICs over time

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 Computer System 5

machines in 1984. The popularity of the PC surged

by the introduction of Graphical User Interface (GUI)
based operating systems by Microsoft and others in
place of computers with only command line interface,
like UNIX or DOS. Around 1990s, the growth of World
Wide Web (WWW) further accelerated mass usage of
computers and thereafter computers have become an
indispensable part of everyday life.
Further, with the introduction of laptops, personal
computing was made portable to a great extent. This
was followed by smartphones, tablets and other
personal digital assistants. These devices have leveraged
the technological advancements in processor
miniaturisation, faster memory, high speed data and
connectivity mechanisms.
The next wave of computing devices includes
the wearable gadgets, such as smart watch, lenses,
headbands, headphones, etc. Further, smart appliances
are becoming a part of the Internet of Things (IoT), by
leveraging the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

1.3 Computer Memory

A computer system needs memory to store the data and
instructions for processing. Whenever we talk about the
‘memory’ of a computer system, we usually talk about the
main or primary memory. The secondary memory (also
called storage device) is used to store data, instructions
and results permanently for future use.
1.3.1 Units of Memory
A computer system uses binary numbers to store and
process data. The binary digits 0 and 1, which are the
basic units of memory, are called bits. Further, these
bits are grouped together to form words. A 4-bit word
is called a Nibble. Examples of nibble are 1001, 1010,
0010, etc. A two nibble word, i.e., 8-bit word is called a
byte, for example, 01000110, 01111100, 10000001, etc.
Like any other standard unit, bytes are grouped
together to make bigger chunks or units of memory.
Table 1.1 shows different measurement units for digital
data stored in storage devices.

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 6 Computer Science – Class xi

Table 1.1 Measurement units for digital data

Unit Description Unit Description
KB (Kilobyte) 1 KB = 1024 Bytes PB (Petabyte) 1 PB = 1024 TB
MB (Megabyte) 1 MB = 1024 KB EB (Exabyte) 1 EB = 1024 PB
GB (Gigabyte) 1 GB = 1024 MB ZB (Zettabyte) 1 ZB = 1024 EB
TB (Terabyte) 1 TB = 1024 GB YB (Yottabyte) 1 YB = 1024 ZB

1.3.2 Types of Memory

Human beings memorise many things over a lifetime, and
recall from memory to make a decision or some action.
However, we do not rely on our memory completely, and
we make notes and store important data and information
using other media, such as notebook, manual, journal,
document, etc. Similarly, computers have two types of
memory   — primary and secondary.
(A) Primary Memory
Primary memory is an essential component of a
computer system. Program and data are loaded into the
primary memory before processing. The CPU interacts
directly with the primary memory to perform read or
write operation. It is of two types viz. (i) Random Access
Memory (RAM) and (ii) Read Only Memory (ROM).
RAM is volatile, i.e., as long as the power is supplied
to the computer, it retains the data in it. But as soon
as the power supply is turned off, all the contents of
RAM are wiped out. It is used to store data temporarily
while the computer is working. Whenever the computer
is started or a software application is launched, the
required program and data are loaded into RAM
for processing. RAM is usually referred to as main
memory and it is faster than the secondary memory or
storage devices.
On the other hand, ROM is non-volatile, which
means its contents are not lost even when the power is
turned off. It is used as a small but faster permanent
storage for the contents which are rarely changed. For
Think and Reflect example, the startup program (boot loader) that loads
the operating system into primary memory, is stored
Suppose there is a
computer with RAM
in ROM.
but no secondary (B) Cache Memory
storage. Can we install RAM is faster than secondary storage, but not as fast
a software on that
computer? as a computer processor. So, because of RAM, a CPU

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 Computer System 7

may have to slow down. To speed up the operations of

the CPU, a very high speed memory is placed between
the CPU and the primary memory known as cache. It
stores the copies of the data from frequently accessed
primary memory locations, thus, reducing the average
time required to access data from primary memory.
When the CPU needs some data, it first examines the
cache. In case the requirement is met, it is read from
the cache, otherwise the primary memory is accessed.
(C) Secondary Memory
Primary memory has limited storage capacity and Pen
is either volatile (RAM) or read-only (ROM). Thus, a Drive

computer system needs auxiliary or secondary memory

to permanently store the data or instructions for
future use. The secondary memory is non-volatile and
has larger storage capacity than primary memory. It
is slower and cheaper than the main memory. But, it CD/DVD
cannot be accessed directly by the CPU. Contents of
secondary storage need to be first brought into the main
memory for the CPU to access. Examples of secondary
memory devices include Hard Disk Drive (HDD), CD/
DVD, Memory Card, etc., as shown in Figure 1.7.
However, these days, there are secondary storage
devices like SSD which support very fast data transfer
speed as compared to earlier HDDs. Also, data transfer
between computers have become easier and simple due
to the availability of small-sized and portable flash or
pen drives.

1.4 Data Transfer between Memory and CPU

Figure 1.7: Storage devices
Data need to be transferred between the CPU and
primary memory as well as between the primary and
secondary memory.
Data are transferred between different components of
a computer system using physical wires called bus. For
example, bus is used for data transfer between a USB
port and hard disk or between a hard disk and main
memory. Bus is of three types — (i) Data bus to transfer
data between different components, (ii) Address bus to
transfer addresses between CPU and main memory.
The address of the memory location that the CPU wants
to read or write from is specified in the address bus,

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