Dot Matrix Printer (DMP) DMP prints one character at a time as a set of dots produced by the pins on the

print head. It uses a nine or twenty-four pin print head. The pins or printing wires are aligned into the shape of the character to be printed before the print head strikes the ribbon. The impact of the strike produces character shapes on paper. The speed of DMP is measured in character per second (CPS). A normal dot matrix printer with nine or twenty-four pin print head can produce output ranging from 50 to 600 characters per second. It produces lot of noise when working. The popular DMPs are Epson, Panasonic, Citizen, Wipro, TVSE and Lexmark. The operating cost for DMP is the lowest among all types of Printers. Inkjet Printer Inkjet is a non-impact printer and is quiet when working. It sprays ink particles through its nozzle. On leaving the nozzle, the tiny particles of ink get electrically charged. The electrically Computer Fundamentals charged particles are then guided on to the paper to form appropriate characters. Inkjet printers are as cheap as dot matrix printers are; but their operating costs are far higher than those of dot matrix printers. However, they give much better quality than DMPs. They are available in black and white and colour. The popular brands of inkjet printers are Hewlett-Packard, Epson Stylus and Canon. Laser Printer Laser printer is a high-end printer. It is more expensive than inkjet printers and its operating costs are also higher than inkjet printers. It uses the same technology as that of Xerox copier machines and it can produce both character and graphic output. It gives the best quality output. Though expensive, laser printer is becoming increasingly popular. Daisy Wheel Printer The daisy wheel printer has a wheel with a number of spokes made up of metal and plastic. Each spoke carries a typeface at the outer end. The wheel rotates until the appropriate character comes under the hammer, which strikes to produce the impression on paper. These wheels are inexpensive and removable. It is slow and produces noise like dot matrix printer; but it gives fine quality output.

Thermal Printer The thermal printer generates heat to produce the required character shape on specially coated thermal paper. The print head, which carries electric current,

burns the aluminium coating on the paper into the character form. It is a quiet printer. Drum Printer It is a line printer. It has a drum that rotates at high speed. A set of characters is embossed on the drum. It prints one line of characters at a time. The hammer for a particular character position is activated when that character on the drum passes under it to produce character impression on paper. Chain Printer 'The chain printer works like the drum printer. It consists of a set of typefaces on a chain that rotates at high speed. The printer composes one line at a time and the hammers are Organisation of Computer activated to produce one row of characters as it is composed. There is a hammer for each print position. As the characters move around on the chain, the hammer strikes on the opposite side of the print position to produce character impression on paper. Magnetic Printer In a magnetic printer, a drum coated with magnetic material captures the image of the page to be printed. These magnetic spots attract dry ink particles, which are then pressurised and transferred to paper to produce output. Graphic Plotters Plotters are used for plotting graphs and designs on paper. Architects and designers use plotters to produce blueprints of their designs on paper. It is a specialised output device for preparing computer drawn charts and graphs. The most popular type of plotter is the flat bed device. It plots on paper (or other material) that is spread on a flat bed. SECONDARY STORAGE DEVICES Computer storage or memory can be of two types: primary and secondary. Primary memory provides very fast access and is used for storing frequently used programs and data. But, primary storage is expensive and also volatile. Hence it is used for storing data and instructions mostly temporarily. Large files and databases are stored on secondary storage devices. Data and instructions from the secondary storage are moved into the primary memory for the CPU to access them. Secondary storage is thus supplementary to primary storage. It is, therefore, also called auxiliary storage. Secondary storage has larger storage capacity and is cheaper than primary storage. But access to secondary storage is slower than that to. Primary storage. Hence, secondary storage holds data and programs not currently in use.

The secondary storage devices may be serial access or direct access devices. Magnetic tape is a serial access device whereas magnetic disk, optical disk and floppy diskettes are direct access storage devices (DASD). In serial access storage, retrieving a data element from a storage location requires going through Computer Fundamentals the earlier records right from the beginning of the file. On the other hand, direct access storage device stores each data element in a storage location with a specific storage address that can be individually accessed without referring to other data elements in storage. A revolution is taking place in data storage technologies. The storage devices are getting smaller and, at the same time, the storage capacity is getting larger. The popular secondary storage devices are magnetic disk, magnetic tape and CD-ROM. Important secondary storage devices are explained below. Magnetic Disks Magnetic disks are made of rigid metals or synthetic plastic material. The disk platter is coated on both the surfaces with magnetic material and both the surfaces can be used for storage. The magnetic disk provides direct access and is popular for both small and large computer systems. The magnetic disk comes in two forms: hard disks and floppy disks. Hard Disks Hard disk is a metal platter with magnetic coating on both sides. Several such hard disks are stacked one on the other, without touching each other, into a disk pack for large storage. The disk pack, housed in metal container with a read/write head assembly unit, is fixed inside a computer permanently. Hard disks are highly reliable and accessing data from hard disk is faster and more efficient than that from floppies. A disk pack is a collection of disks stacked vertically one on top of the other and it is mounted on a disk drive. The disk drive has a head assembly with a read/write arm for each pair of recording surfaces. Each disk has two surfaces for storage. The top surface of the first disk and the lower surface of the last disk are not used for recording as small dust particles might settle down on them. The disk drive mechanism rotates the disk pack at a constant speed. Each read/write arm has one pair of read/write head, one for each surface. To increase the speed of access, the read/write arm carries as many heads as the number of tracks on the disk. The access time is determined by two factors: the seek time and the rotational delay. The seek time is the time required to locate the track on the recording surface. Rotational delay involves positioning the read/write arm at the right track of the surface for reading/writing. Advantages of Hard Disks -They support direct access. -They have quick access rates.

-They have fairly large storage capacities. -Hard disks are essential for online systems. Disadvantages of Hard Disks -Hard disks are expensive. -Hard disks are not always reliable. For example, hard disks can crash. If they crash, the entire data on them may be lost as data recovery is difficult and expensive. Speed and performance of hard disks are slower than that of CPU. Hence, they slow down overall speed of performance of the computer. Floppy Diskettes These diskettes, made of synthetic plastic material, are flexible. Hence they are called floppy diskettes or simply Advantages of Hard Disks They support direct access. They have quick access rates. They have fairly large storage capacities. Hard disks are essential for online systems. Disadvantages of Hard Disks Hard disks are expensive. Hard disks are not always reliable. For example, hard disks can crash. If they crash, the entire data on them may be lost as data recovery is difficult and expensive. Speed and performance of hard disks are slower than that of CPU. Hence, they slow down overall speed of performance of the computer. Floppy Diskettes These diskettes, made of synthetic plastic material, are flexible. Hence they are called floppy diskettes or simply floppies. Floppies are cheaper and more rugged than metal disks. The floppies were introduced in the early 1970s and became very popular with the arrival of microcomputers. The floppies are popularly used on microcomputers. They are reliable and portable. They are available in many sizes like 5 1.4 -inches and 3 Yz -inches and vary in storage capacity from 360 KB to 2.88 MB. The 5 1.4 -inch floppies are not used these days. The 3 Y2inch floppies, called microfloppies, are very popular and they can hold 1.44 MB to 2.88 MB of storage. The current trend is towards reducing the size and increasing the storage capacity of the floppies. Magnetic Tape Magnetic tape is a serial access storage medium. It can store large volume of data at low costs. The conventional magnetic tape is in reels of up to 3600 feet made of mylar plastic tape; the tape is one half inch in width and is coated with magnetic material on one side. The reel of tape is loaded on a magnetic tape drive unit. During any read/write operation, the tape is moved from one spool to the other in the same way as in the audiocassette tape recorder.

The conventional tape is replaced by cartridge tape that is housed in a small box that is cartridge, which is more convenient to use. This eliminates the need to manually handle and thread the tape for any read/write operation. The magnetic tape is densely packed with magnetic spots in frames across its width. A frame records one byte and each bit in the frame is read/written by a read/write head for that bit position. The tape has nine tracks, out of which eight are used as data tracks and the ninth one for parity bit meant for error detection. The head assembly, with one head for each track, simultaneously reads from or writes bit streams on to the tape. One track is used only for parity, which will be a bit with a value of either a 0 or 1 depending on parity convention followed. In c)C of even ':;<ii';':y, the r,umber of 1 s in the frame will be even. If the ilumber of 1s in the data tracks is odd, the parity bit will be 1 so that total number of 1 s in that frame is even. For example, if the data tracks carry the bits 00011100, then the parity bit is 1, that makes the total number of 1 s in the nine bit stream an even number, that is four in the above example. If the parity is odd, the value of parity bit will be 0 so that the total number of 1 s in the frame is odd. Tapes. are ideally suited for large storage for serial processing of data. They are generally used for backing up large volumes of data required for serial processing. They are low cost and reliable storage devices. They can store fairly large volumes of data and are ideal for batch processing applications, storing historical data and backing up of important files. It is also a cheap and effective secondary storage medium for ensuring security of data by backing up data and keeping it off-thesite. Besides tape formats are more standardised than disk formats that facilitates transfer of data between machines. It can rapidly transfer data to the CPU. The disadvantage is that it permits only serial access and hence not suitable for many applications requiring direct access. Differences between Magnetic Tapes and Magnetic Disks 1. Magnetic tape supports only serial access. Magnetic disk permits serial and random access. 2. Magnetic tape has much larger storage capacity than a magnetic disk. 3. Magnetic tape is divided length wise into tracks and data are recorded in tracks. In case of disk it is divided into circular tracks and sectors. Data are recorded in one sector fully before moving into the next. 4. Magnetic tape takes much more processing time than magnetic disk, as the access is serial. 5. Accessing and updating of on-line disk files are much faster than tape files. 6. A number of disk files affected by a single transaction can be updated simultaneously whereas tape files have to be updated separately. 7. Disk file updating process rewrites the old records, and data files have to be backed up for security.

Optical storage Optical storage technology uses light as the medium for representing data. Laser beams are used to store and retrieve data. Commonly used optical storage devices include CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW and DVD. CD-ROM Compact-disk Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM) is the most exciting development that has taken place in secondary storage in recent years. CDROM can store huge quantity of data, of about 650 MB, which is equivalent to 200,000 pages of ordinary text on a single disk. It is relatively inexpensive and is used in both small and large computer systems. This disk is made of synthetic resin that is coated with a reflective material, usually aluminium. When high intensity laser beam is focussed on the disk, it forms tiny pits on it. The pit represents I and the data are read using low intensity laser beams. The pit zeflects less intense light. The reflected light is sensed to know the bit 0 from 1; the light will be more intense in the case of the former as there is no pit. A special feature of CD-ROM is its ability to store different kinds of data such as text, pictures, animation, sound, video and graphics. This makes it valuable for certain industries like travel, entertainment and motion pictures. The data stored on CD-ROM are read only as the name indicates, that is, the data on CD-ROM cannot be modified. Hence, it is well suited for storing relatively static data. CD-R This is Compact Disk -Recordable. It can be used to write data on it once. The data on it can be retrieved as and when needed. CD-RW Compact Disk Re-writable (CD-RW) is an optical disk that can be rewritten many times. The data stored on it can be read, erased and re-written as frequently as needed. DVD Digital Versatile Disk (earlier known as Digital Video Disk.)is a large capacity secondary storage device. It stores seven times CD capacity on a single side. Double-sided or dual layer DVDs are also available with much larger storage capacity. DVD uses a 5-inch disc for storage. That is, it is of the same size as a CD ROM. Single layer, single-sided DVD has a storage capacity of 4.7 GB. Wtih double-layer, double sided disc, it can store 17 GB of data on a single disk. (Single sided DVDs can store 4.7GB for single layer and 8.5GB for duallayer disks. Double sided DVDs can store 9.40GB for single layer and 17GB for dual-layer disks). With such huge storage capacity, DVDs are used to store fulllength commercial motion pictures, video albums etc. And its viewing quality is

much better than tape storage. DVD system delivers a picture with over twice the definition of traditional storage like VHS. Pen drive Pen drive is a compact secondary storage device. It can be carried like a pen. Its capacity ranges from 128 MB upwards. Computer Output Microfilm and Computer Output Microfiche These are computer output media that use a film similar to camera film. Microfilm consists of long filmstrips that are rolled up. Microfiche is small rectangles of cut films of size 2 by 4 inches to 4 by 6 inches. These are compact and cheap storage media. Since they can store large amount of data and are not in human readable form, they are generally used for archival purpose. MODEM The ordinary telephone lines transmit data in analog form. Computers are digital devices and use digital signals for data processing. Modems are used to connect digital computers with telephone lines. Modem at the originating computer modulates the digital signals and at the receiving computer demodulates analog signals. It converts digital signals into analog signals for transmission over telephone lines. At the other end of the channel, the modem converts the analog signals back into digital signals. Types of Modem Internal modem: This is built on a card and the card is fixed into a slot on the motherboard of a computer. External modem: It is external to the system and is plugged into RS 232 or RS 232 C connector for computer communications. Acoustic coupler modem: This is not direct modem. It requires telephone handset as intermediary equipment. Modems come in different speeds like 9.6 kbps, 33.6 kbps etc. The modem speed should at least be equal to bandwidth of the communication channel that sets the maximum size of data that can be sent at a time. If the modem speed is less than the bandwidth, modem will become a bottleneck in communication as it slows down the rate of data transfer.

Evolution of Computer
Computer is one of the marvellous inventions of the recent times. Its impact is felt in every walk of human life today. It is extensively used in communications, commerce, education, healthcare, weather forecasting, military, research and so on. Computer literacy is increasingly becoming essential for carrying out almost any human activity. It all started with a search for aids in computing. Very humble beginning. It took quite a long period of time to develop a fully functional computer. Yet, its diffusion was very quick. Networking, fusion of information and communications technologies, evolution of the Internet and its Widespread use all over the world is other major developments in the area of information technology. Information technology infrastructure has gained strategic importance for organisations and nations worldwide. Necessity is the mother of invention. Man always wanted to do some counting or computing. To begin with he used pebbles to keep a count of the cattle taken out every day for grazing. Modern man can count or calculate small numbers with ease, but his requirement for data processing is so enormous that he needs a machine that can instantly process the data captured from source and provide real time response. The early devices such as abacus and slide rule cannot keep pace with his needs. The progress of man from pebbles to PCs is a great march in technological history of mankind. Every human activity is becoming increasingly information intensive. There is a growing need to collect, process, store, retrieve and exercise control over huge quantity of data. Computer is the tool that performs these operations with great speed and efficiency. But computers took long years to reach the present level of sophistication. History of Computers The history of computers dates back to the age when man started using tools for computations. The whole history of computing can be divided into two periods based on the technology used in computing devices such as mechanical era and electronic era. Mechanical Era Probably the first computing device was the abacus used by the Chinese in the fifth century Bc. This was used for systematic calculation of arithmetic operations. The abacus is a manual device that can make extremely rapid calculations. In the early 17th century AD John Napier invented a calculating device. This device could be used to multiply numbers by manipulating the rods in this device. Later in 1643 Blaise Pascal invented the mechanical adding machine called the Pascaline. He used geared counter wheels that could be set to any of the positions zero to nine. The geared tooth was used for carrying one to the next position when 9 was reached. G. W. Leibuitz, a German Mathematician, invented a machine in 1671 that was capable of doing all

arithmetic operations. It could control the amount of adding and was the first multiplying machine capable of all arithmetic operations. Although there were a number of improvements in calculating devices, yet no conceptual changes were made until the end of the 18th century. In 1804 Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French inventor, devised a loom that used punched cards to direct the weaving pattern. Jacquard's loom is the first known device to use instructions on cards to "program" the operations of a machine. Charles Babbage designed several devices which he called engines. In 1822 he designed Difference Engine to calculate life tables (Statistics of expectation of life) for insurance business. This machine could do all arithmetic operations and perform a sequence of operations automatically. As Babbage worked, he developed the unique idea of storing instructions within the machine. This work led to the development of Analytical Engine, which he designed in 1833. But he was unable to produce a working model of this machine, as the precision engineering was not able to meet his level of precision. This mechanical engine was designed to be completely automatic, capable of performing all the basic arithmetic operations at a speed of 60 additions per minute. This machine had five components: 1. Input device to pass data and instructions into the machine 2. a store to hold numbers, both data and intermediate results 3. a mill to perform arithmetic operations on the stored data. 4. a control unit to direct the engine to do the desired operations in the right sequence, and, 5. an output device to display the results of calculations. This machine could be programmed by instructions initially coded on punched cards and later stored internally. This device had provisions for inputting data, storing information, performing arithmetic operations and printing out results. This provided a base for modern computer. At the end of the 19th century, Herman Hollerith and James Powers designed a data processing machine for processing census data of the USA. Hollerith developed codes for processing both alphabetical and numerical data by punching holes in cards and using a device to read such data into the computer memory. George Stibitz constructed the first automatic computer at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York in 1939. He wired together ordinary telephone relays to perform arithmetic calculations on computer. He represented each decimal digit by a code of ones and zeroes such that four relays arranged in the pattern of being energised or not could repres(":1nt a number. This was the beginning of on-line communication to the computer. Another major development was the building of MARK I in 1940s which utilised electro-magnetic relays.

Electronic Era In the late 1930s John v.Atansoff developed the first electronic computer using valves at Iowa State University. It was a small computer with an add-subtract unit and it employed about 300 valves. It was developed as a special-purpose computer to solve simultaneous equations. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was the first popular general-purpose electronic computer, which was developed under the guidance of John W.Mauchly and J.P.Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania. John Von Neumann was consultant or this project. ENIAC used nearly 18000 vacuum tubes and weighed about 30 tons. It used decimal number system for its operation During the period 1946-52, John Von Neumann and his team developed a high-speed digital computer using vacuum tubes called lAS. This machine mainly served as a laboratory model to test many notions of programming and coding used in modern computers. Transistor was invented in 1948 at AT&T's Bell Labs. The transistors started replacing vacuum tubes in computers in the 1950s. Fabrication of integrated circuits was another major development towards the end of 1950s and by the middle of 1960s integrated circuits replaced transistor circuits. Advances in integration technology led to the development of medium scale integration (MSI), large-scale integration (LSI) and very large scale integration (vLSI) circuits. The first LSI chips became available by 1970. With the availability of LSI and VLSI chips, single-chip microprocessor could be developed. Intel Corporation introduced the first microprocessor in 1971 and the first single chip microcomputer in 1976.The first computer user in the USA was the US Census Bureau which acquired a UNIVAC I in 1951. The first business firm to acquire a computer (UNIVAC I) was the General Electric in 1954. These computers used vacuum tube circuitry and are said to belong to first generation computers. In India, first generation computers were first used at the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta and at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay. GENERATIONS OF COMPUTER For simplifying and providing a framework for discussion of the growth of computer industry, it is customary to break it into generations of growth. Originally the term 'generation' was used to distinguish between varying hardware technologies. But since 1968, both hardware and software advances are considered in the generations classification. These generations represent major advances in computing technology. First Generation (1946 - 1954) The first electronic computer, ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and calculator) was developed in 1947 at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. This machine had vacuum tubes as switching devices. Von Neumann introduced the concept of stored program by around the same time and the first digital

computer using program, EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), was announced in 1949. Later Remington Rand of the USA developed the first commercial computer, Universal l Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) using this technology. These vacuum tube-based computers could perform computations in milliseconds. They were very large in size, consumed lot of power dnd emitted too much of heat. They required to be housed in large air-conditioned rooms. During this period, computer programming was mainly done in machine language. Assembly language was invented in the early fifties. The concept of operating system was yet to develop. The user had to be both an electronics expert and a programmer to use the computer for any task. Second Generation (1955 - 1964) A big revolution in electronics took place in 1946 with the invention of transistors by Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley. The transistors were highly reliable and easier to handle and maintain than the vacuum tubes. They required much less power. These transistors replaced vacuum tubes in computers during this period. Transistor based computers of this generation performed the same function with more accuracy and speed than the first generation computers. They were less expensive as well. Another technological breakthrough during this period was the invention of magnetic cores for storage. The magnetic cores were used to construct large random access memories. Magnetic disk storage was also developed during this period. Commercial applications rapidly developed during this period and dominated computer use by mid 1960s. Honeywell 400, IBM 7030 and UNIVAC LARC are examples of computers of this generation. This period also witnessed development of high level languages (like FORTRAN, COBOL, ALGOL, and SNOWBOL) and operating systems. Third Generation (1965 - 1974) During this generation, silicon transistors replaced germanium transistors. Integrated circuits were developed by interconnecting transistors, resistors and capacitors grown on a single chip of silicon. Integrated Circuit (IC) chips were used in computers. ICs were small in size, less power consuming and less expensive than the previous switching technology. Small-scale integration, which had components in the order of 10 on a chip, gave way to medium scale integration with components in the order of 100 per chip. Advances in storage technologies resulted in creating large capacity magnetic, disks and tapes and large magnetic core based random access memory. IBM 360/370, CDC 6600 etc. are examples of computers of this period. On software front, high level languages were improved. Fortran IV and optimising FORTRAN compilers were developed. Standardisation of COBOL (COBOL 68) was another major development during this period.

Fourth Generation (1975 - 1989) The fourth generation computers were made using very large scale integration technology. Tens of thousands of components were packed on a single chip, the size of a fingernail. It led to the development of microprocessor. The advent of microprocessor ushered in a PC revolution bringing down the cost of machines and increasing the power of the machine manifold. Magnetic core memories were replaced by semiconductor memories. Another development during this period was the development and spread of computer networks and the gradual evolution of the Internet. Personal computer operating systems were developed during this period. Availability of PC DOS, MS DOS and Apple MAC operating system software made computers more user-friendly. Graphic User Interface (GUI) technology was exploited to offer more comfort to users. PCs became more affordable and widespread during this period. IBM PC, Apple II, VAX 9000 , CRAY etc. are examples of computers of this period. A significant development in software was the development of concurrent programming languages like ADA. Another notable development was the introduction of interactive graphic devices and language interfaces to graphic systems Fifth Generation (1990 onwards) During this generation, Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) technology gave way to Ultra Large Scale Integration that led to the development of microprocessor chip with several million electronic components on each. Powerful laptops, notebook PCs and desktops were the other developments during this period. Advances in storage technologies such as micro floppies, CD-ROM, DVD, flash memory etc. increased data storage capability of computers in the fifth generation. This period also witnessed the huge growth in Internet usage particularly the popularity of WWW and e-mail. The fifth generation is essentially about a new super-breed of computers. These computers will be able to think and take decisions. Artificial Intelligence is being built into the computer. The revolutionary parallel processing is being used in the new breed of computers in place of conventional Von Neumann architecture. On the software front, effort is being directed at developing languages to cope with such new generation computers. Languages known as functional languages and object-oriented languages such as C++ have been developed during this generation. Development of more user-friendly operating systems like MS Windows and Lynux, and Lynux based software products are the other developments during this period.