This highly acclaimed, well-established and widely adopted text, now in its Fourth Edition, shows, in an easy to read style, how a computer system functions, besides covering the basics of programming. It analyzes, syste-matically and logically, both the hardware and software aspects of computers.

The book begins with how numeric and character data are represented in a computer, and how various input and output units function. The text then goes on to give a masterly analysis of how different types of memory units are organized and how data is processed by the processor. Besides, it explains clearly and concisely the interconnection between I/O units, memory and processor. Software concepts such as programming languages, and operating systems are lucidly explained.

With the growing use of wireless to access computer networks, both cellular wireless communication and WiFi (wireless high fidelity) have become extremely important. In fact, these have become part of the fundamental knowledge of computer scientists and are, therefore, included in the text. In addition, as the use of computer in multimedia processing has become so common, this topic finds a place in the book.

This book with its numerous student friendly features will be an ideal text for undergraduate and postgraduate students of computer science and applications (BCA and MCA), for under-graduate students of engineering where this is being introduced as a core course, and for students of management where the basics of computers form a fundamental requirement. Besides, for any reader or professional who wishes to know the fundamentals of computers, this would be a highly useful book.

Key Feautres

Fully updated but retains the major contents of the third edition.

New chapter on Analog and Digital Communication Systems and Multimedia Data Acquisition and Processing.

Adds material on:

o how computers are networked and how networks are interconnected to form Internet, Intranet and Virtual Private Networks.

o advanced concepts such as multi-programming, virtual memory, cache memory, DMA interfaces, RISC,DSP, RFID, Smartcards, multimedia compression (MP3, MPEG) are described from first principles.

o how wired and wireless communication systems function in relation to interconnecting computers.

Each chapter begins with learning goals and ends with summary. These aid self-study.

Provides a large number of review exercises at the end of each chapter.