For Non IT Students

Srikanth KS

IT professional

Objective The Objective of this presentation is to explain the

fundamentals of computer science. The target audience can be students from Non IT background or professionals with limited working knowledge of Programming.

This presentation will introduce the terms that are frequently used in IT industry and it will help familiarise students with the concept of Programming.

This presentation will not discuss any new topic it will only reiterate the basic terms and definations

Stone age to IT age

Human Brain and a Computer What are the differences between a Human and a

computer?

What is a ComputerA computer is a general purpose device that can be programmed to carry

out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically

As it can be seen from the definition a computer will perform the set of tasks that it has been asked to do. It simply follows the rule set given and does not think more.

Further a program can only work on numbers even better binary number system which has only 2 states TRUE (1) or FALSE (0) it does not understand anything in between this

So in summary a program gives a set of instructions to the computer and tells the order in which it should be executed.

Group Activity Let us play a game team size 2.

Work with your partner to complete this exercise

Create a set of instructions to eat an Orange.

The set of instructions should be so detailed that a person who has never seen an orange should be able to eat an orange following your instructions

Take 5 minutes to list down the instructions

Note to the presenter

Dear Presenter kindly pause this video for 5 minutes giving the students time to write their ideas

How to eat an orange? Lucky we have seen an orange before and know how to eat

it. Let us see how many of you got it right

Prerequisites: An orange is a fruit which is orange in colour. It has a skin which cannot be eaten. The skin needs to be removed to then expose the fruit. Seed should not be eaten.

Step 0: Take an orange from the basket containing fruits

Step 1: Wash the fruit with water for 10 seconds

Step 2: With your finger nail pierce the orange skin by 2mm. Note to the students when we say pierce we as human beings know when to stop a computer does not know

How to eat an Orange ? Step 3: Tear the skin until it cuts no end of the skin is

touching the fruit.

Step 4: Repeat Step 2 and 3 until there is no skin left

Step 5: Select one peel of orange (see the red mark in)

Step 6: Peel it out

Step 7: Open the inner skin to expose the seed

Step 8: Remove the seed

Step 9: Repeat step 5 to 8 until no more peels are available

Step 10: Now you can enjoy the fruit……

Eating an orange to Computers Algorithm: An algorithm is an outline of how a program

should work.

Procedure / Method / Function: Different languages use different words but all mean the same…

A set of instructions for executing a specific task. In

our example peeling an orange skin is a method,

removing each peel is a method and removing the

seeds is a method.

Event/Interrupt: Is an action or occurrence recognised

by software

Handler: A routine that handles an event.

Few more terms Process: An instance of computer program being

executed.

Thread: A smallest sequence of program that can be managed independently by a scheduler

Signal : A method of Inter process communication

Memory: The computing resource could be volatile or Non volatile.

All this is embedded within an Operating System

What is an operating system? An operating system is a set of programs which interact

with the hardware and provide a set of common services for the program

Now let us understand what an OS is Assume you are moving to a new place what will you look

for? A house Water supply Electricity Safety etc…This can be equated to a set of services provided by an operating system

What are some common services? File system management

Resource management (Can be memory or a resource like printer)

Scheduler

Provide an interface to the user (Limited control)

What to How A program works on the target computer based on a

set of codes called Operational code (Opcode)

In general there are 4 steps which can be written as

Fetch

Decode

Execute

Store

8085 architecture

Fetch Cycle

Opcode

Memory Read Cycle

Memory Write Cycle

Where does the Math happen? The arithmetic-logic unit is a fundamental part of any

computer, performing addition, subtraction, and logic operations

ALU Deciphered [1]

Finally the different possible options

Now lets move one step higher So far we learnt about operating system, its functions

and the internal architecture of the 8085 microprocessor.

Lets quickly go a few steps above and learn about programming languages, Frameworks, Utilities etc

High level language A programming language such as C, FORTRAN, or

Pascal that enables a programmer to write programs that are more or less independent of a particular type of computer. Such languages are considered high-level because they are closer to human languages and further from machine languages.[2]

Software Framework A framework is an infrastructure provided by a

programing language in order for the programmer to implement his methods.

In computer systems, a framework is often a layered structure indicating what kind of programs can or should be built and how they would interrelate. Some computer system frameworks also include actual programs, specify programming interfaces, or offer programming tools for using the frameworks.[3]

Example frameworks : .Net, AJAX, Cactus,

Utilities A set of methods bundled together

Example Jquery, Methods that compute scientific functions like ALGLIB, GNU Octave, Packages like excel Labview and matlab

Algorithms An algorithm (pronounced AL-go-rith-um) is a

procedure or formula for solving a problem. The word derives from the name of the mathematician, Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi, who was part of the royal court in Baghdad and who lived from about 780 to 850.

FLOW CHART SYMBOLS

TERMINAL – the beginning or ending of a

program

INPUT/OUTPUT – where the user of the program is

asked for information (INPUT) or where the program displays a result (OUTPUT)

PROCESSING – shows any mathematical

operation

CALL – shows any other pieces of the

program that are called upon

DECISION – represents any action where the

computer is making a decision

Summary In this presentation we have learnt the different terms

used in computer science.

We have learnt about an Algorithm what it is and how we should go about it

We have learnt about an operating system and its uses

We have learnt the differences between a framework and a utility

About the authorSrikanth KS completed his MS from BITS Pilani specialized in software systems. He works in a multi national company as a software engineer responsible for design and development of embedded software. He has been in this industry since 15 years. He has been a part of the journey by working with 8051 microcontrollers and is currently working on 32 bit processors.He has a passion to teach engineering students and to provide them the knowledge that they seldom get in their colleges. All his posts can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/SrikanthKS2

Credits The Author would like to thank all authors who have

contributed directly or indirectly in the preparation of this slide show.

All information has been taken from the public domain and the author thanks all of them for providing the information.

References Microprocessors – Goankar

Inside the ALU http://www.righto.com/2013/01/inside-alu-of-8085-microprocessor.html

Terms and Definitions http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/high_level_language.html

whatis.techtarget.com/definition/framework