ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a brief introduction of all the aspects of computer needed by a budding programmer. These include definitions of the computer, data, processing, bits and bytes, binary-coded decimal (BCD), extended binary-coded decimal interchange code (EBCDIC), and the American Standard Code for Information Exchange (ASCII), as well as components of the computer, namely the central processing unit (CPU), bus, system clock, random-access memory (RAM), and input/output (I/O) devices. Then the terms of software and firmware are explained. The operating system components, namely the processor management, memory management, device management, and information management, are explained in sufficient detail. Next the networking and network management are introduced. Then application software is also explained briefly. Then the working of computer, including what computers can do and how computers work, is explained. All in all, this chapter gives adequate information, without overloading the reader and avoiding too much detail, needed by a programmer to develop computer programs and then to debug and eliminate all bugs in those programs.
