Page 7 - DLIS108_INFORMATION_AND_COMMUNICATION_TECHNOLOGY_APPLICATIONS

VED1
e\L-lovely-eng\comm1-1.pmd IInd 16-9-11 IIIrd 27-12-11 IVth 4-1-12

Information and Communication Technology Applications

We are living in an information age dependent upon digital information. Digital information is
Notes electronic information, the result of computer processing. Every type of job relies upon getting
information, using it, managing it, and relaying information to others. Computers enable the efficient
processing and storage of information.
Do not think of a computer merely as the machine with the keyboard and the mouse, although that
might be true for some types of computers. Embedded computers may be inside your household
appliances, the VCR, the automobile, planes, trains, power plants, water purification plants,
calculators, and even inside a few toys. These embedded computers are very small. They affect our
lives each day. Why, even modern traffic lights operate with computers. They are all around us.
Think of additional ways in which computers affect our lives each day.
Technically, a computer is a programmable machine. This means it can execute a programmed list
of instructions and respond to new instructions that it is given. Today, however, the term is most
often used to refer to the desktop and laptop computers that most people use. When referring to a
desktop model, the term “computer” technically only refers to the computer itself — not the monitor,
keyboard, and mouse. Still, it is acceptable to refer to everything together as the computer. If you
want to be really technical, the box that holds the computer is called the “system unit.”
Some of the major parts of a personal computer (or PC) include the motherboard, CPU, memory (or
RAM), hard drive, and video card. While personal computers are by far the most common type of
computers today, there are several other types of computers. For example, a “minicomputer” is a
powerful computer that can support many users at once. A “mainframe” is a large, high-powered
computer that can perform billions of calculations from multiple sources at one time. Finally, a
“supercomputer” is a machine that can process billions of instructions a second and is used to
calculate extremely complex calculations.

1.1 Definition of Computer

In a layman’s language, a computer is a fast calculating device that can perform arithmetic operations.
Although the computer was originally invented mainly for doing high speed and accurate
calculations, it is not just a calculating device. Computer can perform any kind of work involving
arithmetic and logical operations on data. It gets the data through an input device, processes it as
per the instructions given and gives the information as output.
A computer is defined as a fast electronic device that processes the input data according to the
instructions given by the programmer/user and provides the desired information as output.
The terms used in the above definition are defined in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1: Terms Used While Defining a computer

Term Definition
Data A set of basic facts and entities which itself has no meaning
Information Data which has some meaning or value
Instruction A statement given to computer to perform a task
Input Data and instructions given to computer
Process Manipulation of data
Output Information obtained after processing of data

2 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY