Portal talk:Computer science
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[edit] About this portal
The "Portal:Computer science" is a collection of hundreds of special (non-article) Wikipedia pages (with prefix "Portal:") that attempt to present an organized view into thousands of articles about the general subject of computer science. There are over 540 portals on other subjects (see general description: Wikipedia:Portal). This portal was begun in June 2006, but improvements are always welcomed, within the current structure, as it evolves. Although the portal pages are designed to help navigate into article groups, readers can still use the Wikipedia search option (at page left) to hunt articles by any words used inside an article. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Topics from 2007
[edit] Portal image
Perhaps this portal can be given Image:Computer.svg (example at right) as an image. --User:AlastairIrvine 10:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTER EDUCATION
COMPUTER, the word came from “COMPUTE” which means CALCULATE.
Definition: A Computer is an electronic device that takes input from the user, processes and generates output.
FEATURES: 1) Speed 2) Accuracy 3) Memory
USER: A person who use a computer.
DATA: A collection of facts, figures and text etc.,
INFORMATION: processed data.
INPUT: It is communication from the user to computer to solve a problem or to achieve a task.
PROCESS: Various steps being taken by a computer according to input given by the user.
OUTPUT: This is results of the process or communication from computer to the user, to produce results of the process.
WHY COMPUTERS NEED TO BE USED?
This question is answered by keeping a fundamental level in mind. Initially, computer became popular for its memory storage, speed in doing process, accuracy of generating output, wide range of applications that can be processed and for the various peripheral devices that can be connected to a single machine for different kinds of processes. This wonderful machine also became popular because it can fulfill personal, professional, charitable etc., requirements of people belongs to various walks of life.
WHEN ACTUALLY CALCULATING MACHINES CAME INTO USE?
The idea of developing a machine used for calculations was started in 8th century. Chinese have developed a machine called ‘ABACUS’ and being used by Chinese and Romans.
Later up to sixteenth century, no recognized development took place until BLAISE PASCAL (a French mathematician) developed a pure mechanical machine in 1630. He named the machine as CENSUS ENGINE which could perform additions and subtractions. Size of the machine was very big and fixed on the floor in a particular place.
After this, CHARLES BABBAGE, a mathematics professor of Pennsylvania University, USA, developed an advanced machine to that of Pascal’s one and named it as ANALYTICAL ENGINE in early 1830’s. This machine could be able to perform additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions too. Babbage used a PUNCHED CARD system for input as well as output in this electro-mechanical machine. Ada Augasta Byron who was a girl student of Babbage, daughter of Lord Byron, helped Babbage in making analytical engine by correcting some of the ideas of Babbage. That is why; she was referred to be the first computer programmer in the world.
Charles Babbage who is referred as FATHER OF COMPUTERS could not satisfy with his invention and tried to make more sophisticated machine first of all by putting his idea on paper. Through out his life, he tried making his project work in opening doors to today’s modern computer. He could not succeed in making a machine of his dream and passed away before putting efforts. Later, for a period of nearly hundred years, good development could not be seen in computers until HERMAN HOLLERITH could design a machine basing on the idea of Charles Babbage.
By early 1930’s many electric components were made available for the developers of calculating machines and Hollerith benefited not only by the equipments/components available at that time, but also Babbage’s idea of dividing a calculating Machine into three major parts such as Input, Process and Output. The machine developed by Hollerith opened doors and created enthusiasm among scientists all over the world in designing calculating machines by early 1940’s. Hollerith could able to establish his own company namely IBM (INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES) corporation, the first company in the world that started manufacturing computers for commercial purpose.
1940 onwards, development in computers took rapid pace and the development herein after is well known to us.
PARTS/PHERIPHERAL DEVICES
INPUT DEVICES
1.Key Board – CUI (Standard Input Device) 2.Mouse – GUI 3.Light Pen 4.Joy Stick 5.MICR (Micro Ink character Recognizer) 6.Scanner 7.Bar code Reader 8.Web Camera and More... CUI: Character user interface GUI: graphical user interface
OUTPUT DEVICES
1.Monitor/Screen/VDU/CRT (Standard Output Device) 2.Printer 3.Plotter 4.Speakers and More....
Memory of the Computer: Memory, a powerful utility available in a computer, which helps user to store information for future reference. It is classified into two parts namely primary memory and secondary memory.
Primary Memory: As its name suggesting, primary memory allows user to enter data in it. This is basically temporary memory. Because, everything entered by the user into the computer will come to it and then be processed. For the convenient management of memory, primary memory further divided into two parts namely RAM and ROM.
RAM – Random Access Memory ROM – Read only Memory
RAM: It is the user’s memory purpose it to keep user’s information The user is having privileges to write, read, modify, delete, copy, etc. It is a volatile memory.
ROM: It is the manufacturer’s memory. Purpose is to power on self test (POST). The user is having privileges only to read. It is a non-volatile memory.
MEMORY MEASUREMENT
BYTE - 1 Character 1024 Bytes - 1 Kilo Byte 1024 KB - 1 Mega Byte 1024 MB - 1 Giga Byte 1024 GB - 1 Tera Byte
Note: Secondary memory devices are good examples for both Input & Output devices because while storing data into them, they behave as output devices and while loading data from them, they behave as input devices.
CONTROL UNIT: Physically, a control unit in a computer is named as micro processor, which is an advanced name that is given to an integrated circuit (IC). A MICRO PROCESSOR was initially recognized by its number such as 80, 82, 84, 86, 88, 286, 386, 486 & 586. As number increases speed in processing instructions also get proportionately increased. In the beginning, speed of a computer (i.e., Micro processor) was measured in MIPS (million instructions per second). Later a new name was given as Mega Hertz (MHZ).
After the introduction of INTEL make PENTIUM PROCESSORS, the speed of the computer got drastically increased. The pentium4 processor can attain a speed of 3.8 - 4 Giga Hertz.
ALU: A physical component of the computer namely math co-processor is nothing but ARITHMETIC AND LOGIC UNIT. This component behaves as a calculator which takes mathematical expressions and gives results.
COMPUTER LANGUAGES
As shown above, depending on the understandability of the user and machine, computer languages classified into two types namely LOW LEVEL and HIGH LEVEL. Low level languages are machine understandable that contains binary language. Where as high level language is human understandable and for the computers, of US-layout, it is English. To bridge the communication gap between user and the machine, ASCII (American standard code for Information Interchange) was developed. That contains decimal numbers ranging from zero to 250. Because, one byte is further classified into 8 bits, each bit can hold one binary digit.
OPERATING SYSTEMS :
MS-DOS WINDOWS UNIX Linux Os/2 XENIX Novel LAN (Local area network)
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES:
COBOL Pascal C Basic BCPL C++ JAVA J2EE VB VC++ Visual Fox pro HTML DHTML XML
PACKAGES:
MS-OFFICE Lotus-1-2-3 WordStar Dbase TALLY
DATABASES:
ORACLE FoxPro Sybase MS- Access Ingress
UTILITIES:
Norton Anti-virus NDD PC-Tools Fire walls Browsers
All the above softwares were developed in assembly level language or machine level languages which is neither understandable to the user nor to the computer. To maintain secrecy for the code of the software and as well to occupy lesser disc space, this language is used.
APPLICATION SOFTWARE:
With the help of system software, the programs, files etc., developed by the end user are called application software.
OPERATING SYSTEM
“It is an INTERFACE between USER and the COMPUTER” This is very essential system software that makes computer hardware become live and start responding to the instructions of the user. That is the reason, operating system software is considered as life to the computer. Soon after, users turning the power switch of the computer on, POST (power on self test) process takes and on successful completion of POST, operating system is searched in the disc and gets loaded into the memory on availability.
This process of LOADING OPERATING SYSTEM into the memory of the computer is called as BOOTING. This is of two kinds i.e., cold booting and warm booting. when a computer that is in switched off state is turned on afresh, it is called cold booting. Where as, a computer which is on and started again using reset button of the CPU is called warm booting.
TYPES OF OPERATING SYSTEMS
There are four significant categories to group operating systems. Namely, 1) Single user single tasking (SUST) 2) Single user multi tasking (SUMT) 3) Multi user single tasking (MUST) 4) Multi user multi tasking (MUMT)
Examples: 1) MS-DOS 2) Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, me(millennium) 3) Novell LAN 4) Unix, Linux, windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, vista
For more.... http://computervisitors.blogspot.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prithvigudipudi (talk • contribs) 06:50, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Topics from 2008
[edit] Network Layer Service Model
This looks like it needs an article to go with it there's only a table on the page. The links almost all point to disambiguation pages. There is in sufficient context for me to determine the meaning of the abbreviation's. In fact thats how I found it in the first place. Also I am considerings a speedy delete nomination if it can't be expanded.Phatom87 (talk • contribs) 16:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- I found serval articles related to the subject and have moved this to template space under the same name. Additional I managed to decipherer must the links and they now point to the appropriate articles. Phatom87 (talk • contribs) 17:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Retrofit topic headers
08-Feb-2008: There hasn't been much discussion here over the past 2 years, so I just grouped the older topics using level-1 headers as "Topics from 2007" (etc.) to emphasize age of topics. Older topics might still apply, but using the tactic of yearly headers to note the age helps avoid rehashing old news, without archiving any ongoing issues. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] About: About this portal
08-Feb-2008: I have retrofit the short topic "About this portal" near the top of the discussion to orient new readers to the concept of the portal (in case they miss "What is a portal?" on the overview page). That orientation blurb precedes the long discussion topics, and it alerts readers that thousands of articles have been linked from these computer-science portal pages, to give readers some idea of how many related pages they face. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
