Computer Work
How does a computer work?
Most activities follow the basic principal of Input-Process-Output. Consider an automobile assembly line. The raw materials are forwarded to the assembling unit. This activity constitutes the Input part of the cycle. The process is the actual building of the automobile. There the process acts upon what has been the input and produces the Output, which in this case would be the finished automobile.
Like all other activities, a computer system follows the Input-Output process or I-P-O cycle. This can best illustrate by an example of an airlines reservation. A person who whishes to travel by air between Singapore and New York first has to fill in a request slip. This contains relevant data, I.E., details of name, age, place of destination, etc. The booking clerk keys in the data from the request slip into the computer. The process in this case includes examining the flight number, the date of the journey, the class requested and determining whether seats are available as per the reservation details. The output of this process is some information confirming the booking, if seats are available, otherwise, the computer turning down the request may issue message.
Let us see how each component of the PC system is related to the I-P-O cycle. The data in the request slip is input the input in computer is via the keyboard. Hence, the keyboard is an input device. The processing is performed by a component of the system unit called the Microprocessor. The information reading availability of seats is displayed on the VDU. Hence, the VDU is an Output Device. As mentioned earlier, the term hardware comprises the input and Output Devices along with the system unit.