Chapter 1: A Brief Introduction to Computers

Chapter 1: A Brief Introduction to Computers

Note to Experienced Programmers

This chapter summarizes the principal components of computers and describes the concepts of hardware, software, operating systems, applications packages, and programming languages, both interpreted and compiled. Anyone with experience in programming will already be familiar with most of the material presented in this chapter and should skip directly to Chapter 2 .

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an introduction to computers that will set the stage for writing computer programs. Its goal is to present information that will enable a novice to understand a little more about what goes on inside a computer as it affects one's ability to control the operations of the machine. In other words, instead of describing what a computer can do for you, this chapter helps you to understand how a computer does things for you, and it sets the stage to allow you, the user, to tell the computer how to do new and different things for you ? things that you yourself will tell it to do.

In order to make sure that each reader has the same understanding of basic concepts of computers, this presentation begins at a very primitive level in describing computers. However, if you have not programmed a computer before, you may do well to read the entire chapter, because the information is presented in a different way from conventional texts.

So relax, be patient, and see if you can find some elements in the...

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Chapter 1: A Brief Introduction to Computers

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