Computer

Computer

Is it meant only for the ‘hi-tech’ brains or for the layman too ? Read the article and decide….
The creative genius in man has striven to make life easier and as a result we had adding machines, cash registers and then calculators. Nowadays, we have the computer. The idea of the present day computer was conceived by men like Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Leibinitz way back in the 17th century.

Anything to do with computer has always been related to people with ‘hi-tech’ brains. This misunderstanding has created a wide gap between the ordinary man and computers. We have to bridge this gap to move ahead and go into the 21st century as a country capable of keeping up the traditions of excellence that our forefathers have shown ever since the beginning of civilisation.

To operate a computer, one does not require ‘hi-tech’ brains. The computer is made of ‘hi-tech’ stuff but the whole field has advanced so much that it has literally become childs play. One does not need even a little bit of electronics or a science background to use it. The computer is separated from the user by so many sets of circuits that one can talk to it in simple commands in English to instruct it to do certain tasks. The computer itself understands only the digits 1 and 0. One couldn’t hope to feed in commands in 1’s and 0’s. It would to run millions of 1’s and0’s. So we have a machine language which has commands in the form of ADD, SUB etc. But this is also complicated and so a high level language is used for Eg:-BASIC, FORTRAN, COBAL, PASCAL etc. These languages have been developed with a specific type of user in mind. The degree to which a language interacts with a user is called user friendliness BASIC is an all purpose language which can be used to do all kinds of work but FORTRAN is basically a language meant for scientific calculations. COBOL is a business oriented language and it would be easier to use COBOL for business calculations rather than BASIC.

Consider the following program which is in BASIC. 1u=5, 20B=10, 30C=A+B, 40 PRINT A, 50 PRINT B, 60 PRINT C. We feed this programe to the input/device which is as in most cases, a keyboard very similar to a typewriter keyboard. This programe is typed and it comes simultaneously on the video screen so that we can moniter what is going to be fed in. After all the 6 lines have been typed in, we print RUN on the screen and input this command also. When this is done, the computer processes the 6 lines that have already gone into its memory. The numbers 10,20 etc, are given at the beginning of each line. So as to give the give the computer a sequence to process the program I .e . it process line No. 10 first, then line No. 20 and so on. So at first it reads line 10 and when we say A=5, we are assigning a constant value of 5 to the variable A. On processing line 20, the value 10 is stored as the value of B. In line number 30 we ask the computer a simple task of addition of 2 variables A and B of which the values 5 and 10 are known to the computer. This value is stored as C. Now line Nos. 40, 50 and 60 are PRINT statements which mean that the computer is expected to print the values of A, B and then C on the video screen as it is stored in the memory. So on the screen we would see 5, 10 and 15. This is a very simple program to illustrate how simple it all actually is. When one has to do a repetitive and time consuming calculation a computer can be very handy. In eg:- quadratic equations are frequently encountered in all sorts of calculations. Some of these equations take a bit of time to solve. If we were to program a computer to do the work, as soon as the coefficients of n, n etc., are fed in, the answer is on the screen. This kind of program would be very useful to a science student. So every time a quadratic equations is encountered we can have the solutions in a couple of seconds rather than in a couple of minutes.

So programs are essential for a computer to function and programs can be made for any of those usual repetitive jobs that we face daily.

Now we go on to how a computer is used in the office of a small scale industry which would need, say, one accountant and one typist. If the propreiters have sufficient funds to buy a capable computer and an equally appropriate program, he could save a lot of man hours spent on account books and typing not to mention the space saved by storing all the records on floppy discs (thin discus- 51/4” in diameter) rather than on paper. He could do a lot more to work to improve production at a factory rather than at a desk waiting for a bill which has gone for typing or an account statement which the accountant is preparing. The major advantage is that he will have all the data he needs at his fingertips. So he could replace his typist and accountant with a couple of data entry operators who have a commerce background.

To create a program all one needs is pure logic and reasoning. It is just a matter of learning the commands which are feasible on a computer and learning to write programs as short as possible, there again it is not essential to have a science background. Only the person who repairs the computer needs to know the circuitory inside.

We are now coming to an age where computerization is almost inevitable in view of the time saved. It now being widely used in banking, ticketing for railways, airlines, police records and many other fields mainly to store data so that it is easily accessible. So all you prospective scientists and Managers, get off your backsides, learn all you can about computers and hitch this wagon to the stars.

Article By: Zacharaih George,St.Teresa's College