INTRODUCTION

The general-purpose computer has assumed a dominant role in our world-wide society. From controlling the ignition of automobiles to maintaining the records of Olympic Games, computers are truly everywhere. In this book a one-semester course is provided for undergraduates that introduces the basic concepts of computers without focusing on distinctions between particular implementations such as mainframe, server, workstation, PC, or embedded controller. Instead the interest lies in conveying principles, with illustrations from specific processors.

In the modern world, the role of computers is multifaceted. They can store information such as a personnel database, record and transform information as with a word processor system, and generate information as when preparing tax tables. Computers must also have the ability to search for information on the World Wide Web.

The all-pervasive use of computers today is due to the fact that they are general purpose. That is, the computer hardware can be transformed by means of a stored program to be a vast number of different machines. An example of this power to become a special machine is found in word processing. For many years, Wang Laboratories was the dominant supplier of word processing machines based on a special-purpose processor with wired-in commands. Unable to see the revolution that was coming with the PC, Wang held to a losing product strategy and eventually was forced out of the business.