CBCS Mathematical Physics Lab: Interconnection Between Functional Components
Dear Readers, Here you will learn about Interconnection Between Functional Components. Computers are seen everywhere around us, in all spheres of life. May it be the field of education and research, travel and tourism, weather forecasting, social networking, e-commerce or any other, computers have now become an indispensable part of our lives. Before entering the CBCS Mathematical Physics Lab course in details, I want to say few words about Interconnection Between Functional Components.
CBCS Mathematical Physics Lab: Interconnection Between Functional Components
The interconnection between the functional components of a computer can be done in many ways. In microcomputers we generally see a Common Bus Architecture as shown in the figure below. As we have seen before that a computer consists of input unit that
takes input, a CPU that processes the input and an output unit that produces output. All these devices communicate with each other through a common bus. A bus is a transmission path (set of conducting wires) over which data or information in the form of electric signals, is passed from one component to another in a computer. The bus can be of three types – Address bus, Data bus and Control Bus.
The address bus carries the address location of the data or instruction. The data bus carries data from one component to another and the control bus carries the control signals. As shown in the figure above, the system bus is the common communication path that carries signals to/from CPU, main memory and input/output devices. The input/output devices communicate with the system bus through the controller circuit. This controller circuit helps to manage various input/output devices attached to the computer.
CBCS Mathematical Physics Lab: Computer – Data and Information
We all know what a computer is? It is an electronic device that processes the input according to the set of instructions provided to it and gives the desired output at a very fast rate. Computers are very versatile as they do lot of different tasks such as storing
data, weather forecasting, booking airline, railway or movie tickets and even playing games.
Data:
It is the term used for raw facts and figures.
For example, 134, + 9, ‘Einstein’, ‘C’ are data. Definition of information should start from next line as given in the word file. In composed file it is starting from the same line immediately after the definition of data.
Information:
Data represented in useful and meaningful form is information. In simple words we can say that data is the raw material that is processed to give meaningful, ordered or structured information.
For example Einstein was a great physicist. This is information about Einstein and conveys some meaning. This conversion of data to information is called data processing.
CBCS Mathematical Physics Lab: Concept of Booting
When the computer is switched on, a copy of boot program is brought from ROM into the main memory. This process is called booting. The CPU first runs a jump instruction that transfers to BIOS (Basic Input output System) and it starts executing. The BIOS
conducts a series of self diagnostic tests called POST (Power On Self Test). These tests include memory tests, configuring and starting video circuitry, configuring the system’s hardware and checking other devices that help to function the computer properly.
Thereafter the BIOS locates a bootable drive to load the boot sector. The execution is then transferred to the Boot Strap Loader program on the boot sector which loads and executes the operating system. If the boot sector is on the hard drive then it will have a
Master Boot record (MBR) which checks the partition table for active partition. If found, the MBR loads that partition’s boot sector and executes it.
Booting Process is of two types – Warm and Cold.
Cold Booting:
When the system starts from initial state i.e. it is switched on, we call it cold booting or Hard Booting. When the user presses the Power button, the instructions are read from the ROM to initiate the booting process.
Warm Booting:
When the system restarts or when Reset button is pressed, we call it Warm Booting or Soft Booting. The system does not start from initial state and so all diagnostic tests need not be carried out in this case. There are chances of data loss and
system damage as the data might not have been stored properly.