The general perception of information technology and computers in particular has been that of a computing mechanism primarily used to manipulate data and present it in various ways. The comparison with human intelligence has been   rather tenuous and in the realm of science fiction. It may therefore come as a surprise to many that scientists and engineers have been working on systems which may replicate organic intelligence in future. In fact, many algorithms and software have already been designed to mimic real intelligence.  

Artificial intelligence has found widespread use in biometrics. Fingerprint readers are commonplace and are extensively deployed in access control systems. Face and iris recognition have lately become popular security devices.

Expert systems are a branch of artificial intelligence where computers are used to play the role of experts.   They are also known as decision support systems and were first deployed by the military. They are used to help military commanders to take tactical decisions under battle conditions. Sometimes the amount of processing and calculations on the field can best be solved by expert systems. As the name suggests, state of the art technology can at present only help in assisting people in taking decisions. However, researchers in this field are confident in creating expert systems which will completely replace human interface.

Robotics is another exciting area under the umbrella of artificial intelligence. As of now, robots are assisting humans in automating factory operations. Computer aided design and computer aided manufacture are already crafting complex mechanical devices with high accuracy. Robots are also used in   mines and restricted places for operations which are dangerous for human beings. They are also used in conducting delicate surgeries in hospitals.

Other terms which are associated with artificial intelligence are neural network and fuzzy logic. Neural networks as the name suggests is a type of system which is designed to replicate human decision process. The tree like structure with different path in the decision process forms the units of a neural network. It is evident that neural networks are essentially hierarchical and follow a definite pattern.

As against a rule based approach, fuzzy logic claims a more exalted place in the pantheons of artificial intelligence. Some scientists believe that human intelligence is not pure logic and has an enormous amount of fuzziness. Two people under similar circumstances may very well behave in different fashion. They therefore conclude that true intelligence is actually fuzzy. However in practice, it is not easy to mathematically model fuzziness. Probability and random number theory have assumed importance and these concepts are used widely in designing systems with fuzzy logic.

The subset of artificial intelligence consists of Expert systems with decision support systems and Robotics. These are implemented with neural networks or fuzzy logic. Human brain is too complex and the logic widely dispersed, to be replicated in its entirety.  Therefore those mechanical activities which do not require much logic and are hierarchical in nature are best suited for present day applications .A day will certainly come when human intelligence is fully replicated by artificial means, though it may not happen in the immediate future.

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We may become used to computers at our office and homes, but the innards always remain a mystery of sorts. What lies inside the box? What creates the dazzling images and almost reads your mind? The components which make up a personal computer are barely few.

The biggest part of a PC is the mother board. It is called so because it acts as a substratum on which other components are mounted. The motherboard itself has many slots in which other parts can be added. First of all, the motherboard requires power to operate. Being a digital component, it works on direct current. The conversion from the usual alternating current supply to direct current is accomplished by the power supply. The power supply gives off heat and therefore requires a fan to cool it down. This is the whirring sound which you normally hear from the back of a PC box. This box which contains the modules and the motherboard is called a mini tower or a full tower depending on its size.

The heart of any PC is the microprocessor. This device accepts, modifies and presents data. Intel and AMD are two companies which manufacture microprocessors. The microprocessor is designed in a compact form and sits in the slot provided on the motherboard. It can be recognized by the fan which is mounted right on top of it.

The motherboard also has slots for the video card, audio card and the internet card, which is also called a network interface card.  The latest motherboards have all features built into itself and therefore does not need cards to be added. Video cards are connected to the output device or what we know as a monitor.

The advanced video cards have their own memory for faster operation .They are called video RAM or Video random access memory.

The PC requires some other essential components called the memory. Memory itself can be divided into three categories. The ROM or read only memory is in the form of a chip which is mounted on the motherboard. The information residing on the ROM cannot be altered. This memory is used to boot strap the PC or in simple words it is used while the computer is being started. There are slots built into the motherboard for RAM, or random access memory. This memory is used while the microprocessor is storing temporary data. Another important kind of memory is the hard disc drive which is connected externally to the motherboard. This memory stores processed information.

We may also find a floppy disc drive or FDD (which has almost become redundant). A CDROM or DVDROM drive has replaced FDD as the main source of storage and retrieval of external data.

Add input devices, which are for providing data to the PC, like a keyboard and a mouse and we have a fully working PC, right in front of us.

The PC essentially has input devices which provide data, the microprocessor to process this information and output device to display the results. Memory in different forms is required to store data. This in short is what a PC is made of.

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Computer programming is at the core of any computer operation. Unlike usual electro mechanical devices, a computer requires software to carry out instructions. At the lowest level, machine code is used to control the hardware and operations of a computer. The machine language is a set of zeros and ones and rather tedious to handle. Therefore the instructions are coded in a higher level language called a computer program. The conversion of a higher level language into a machine code is carried out by assembly level languages or assemblers.  The transformation is completed without any human interface.

During the initial days when computer programs were still at a nascent stage of development, languages such as COBOL and BASIC were highly popular. As the computing power of computers increased ,the demand for more efficient programs emerged. The third generation programs had better portability and efficiency compared to the earlier generations. The need to handle enormous amount of data gave rise to specialized software called database management software or more specifically relational database management software. Companies like Oracle, IBM and Microsoft have developed their own version of RDBMS. On the processing front ,Mainframes were using COLOL for business applications and FORTRAN ( Formula Translation ) for scientific applications.

The concept of modularity became popular when hundreds of software programmers worked simultaneously on a single large project. Object oriented programs like C++ gathered popularity. The code used in these higher level languages was reusable and the techniques could provide for better efficiency.

Microsoft meanwhile brought out its own operating system which could be used on personal computers. In a matter of years the Windows OS became a unprecedented success. The OS2 operating system used by Apple computers was relegated to a second position. IBM has been providing other system software but none could reach the popularity levels of Windows. The only problem with Windows is the issue of security breaches. Though Microsoft has been striving hard to plug the security holes, it has not been entirely successful.

Modern computer programs strive more and more to behave like human language. Technologists believe that a day would come when one could program a computer by given verbal instructions. Surely that’s not going to happen in a hurry. Artificial intelligence, expert systems, fuzzy logic and many more state of the art technologies are changing the face of programming.

Computers unlike any other machine require a software program to operate. It speaks in machine language which is gibberish to the human mind. Higher level languages are used to translate recognizable instructions into machine language. As we progress, the higher level languages would resemble human languages.

At the beginning of the computer era, a single program used to execute different functions. Today, specialized programs are tailor made for different applications. Complex programs require many programmers to work simultaneously on a single project. Modular languages are well suited for such large projects. Object oriented programming has become popular due to their modularity and ease of use.

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Software is the language of a computer. And like human language, there are many different computer languages. Essentially, computer software can be divided into three main groups depending on their use and application. These are system software or operating system referred simply as the OS, application software and programming languages. Usually most of us interact with a computer using application software.

1. System Software: System software or operating system is the software used by the computer to translate inputs from various sources into a language which a machine can understand. Basically, the OS coordinates the different hardware components of a computer. There are many OS in the market. The most popular Os are from the stable of Microsoft. We have all heard, used and wondered at the Windows software, which is an OS. Starting with Windows, Microsoft has migrated to Vista, its latest offering in the market.  It may come as a surprise to some that there are other operating systems used by others. Among these UNIX is used for large office setups with extensive networking. XENIX is software which has now become redundant. HP -UX and AIX are some operating systems used by HP computers. Apache OS is quite popular with web servers. IBM still uses proprietary operating systems for its main frames. Proprietary systems are generally built with the help of a variant of UNIX operating system.
2. Application software: A normal user rarely gets to see the operating system or to work with it. But all of us are familiar with application software which we must use to interact with a computer. Popular examples of application software are the Microsoft office suite which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. We have used these applications extensively. Internet explorer, Mozilla Firefox is two applications used to access the internet. E-mail software like Outlook express is used to manage Emails. It is obvious that all software utilized for working on a computer is classified as application software. In fact all user interfaces are an application. The anti-virus is an application and so is the Media player.
3. Programming languages: Now this is a kind of computer software which is used exclusively by computer programmers. Unless we are also programmers, we are unlikely to come across programming languages. A simple way to understand programming languages is to think of them as bricks which can be used to create applications and operating system. C++, Java and Simlab are some popular programming languages. Generally Java is used for internet applications. C++ is a language of professional developers and used extensively in developing operating systems. PHP is another language used for internet applications. There is a new class of languages which are being utilized for the mobiles. These are light weight, modular languages which are used to design mobile applications.

Computer software falls under three basic categories; System software or operating system, application software and programming languages. We usually use applications on a day to day basis. These applications are themselves created using programming languages.

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The necessity of performing complex tasks by computer software has become imperative in today’s rapidly changing and competitive environment. The software industry and the software professionals are looking for new methods and fresh approaches which will cater to the complexity of software systems. There are inherent limitations in earlier generation of computer languages due to which they are   unable to address the present   demands. They are also prone to errors which may prove costly in terms of reprogramming and correction of obsolete code.

During the history of programming, many different methods have been used.   Procedural programming relied on completing a list of instructions according to an algorithm. The emphasis is on processing. The issue of data is secondary. In modular programming, large programs are broken into smaller parts. This makes handling of the overall development and later maintenance easier. The problem with the above methods is that components of the program do not reflect the real world. Also data cannot be changed without altering the program modules themselves.

The latest programming approach, Object oriented programming (OOP), offers a new and powerful way to tackle the present complexities. This approach makes the task of programming easier, more reliable , reusable and robust. It also leads to better management during software development and ease of maintenance during its entire lifecycle. The program mirrors the real world efficiently as well as provides of data manipulation without change in program code.

The features which separate object oriented programming from other languages is modularity, inheritance, data abstraction, polymorphism and encapsulation.

When we look at the present day development environment, it becomes obvious that an advanced programming language is required to handle large projects. Older languages fail to work in a collaborative setup and may lead to reduced maintainability and up gradation. Typically many hundreds of programmers work on a single project. The whole program is divided into smaller chunks or modules and a programmer is assigned to each of these tasks. A system specialist coordinates the complete project.

An important feature of object oriented programming is the separation of data from the executing program. Earlier programming languages had no boundary between the data and the program. This meant that any change in data structure had to be accompanied by a change in program. By separating the two, an OOP, does away with this restriction.

An object oriented program is modular and each module can be developed by a programmer. All these modules put together make one whole. There  are many advantages of modularity . It becomes easier to maintain as any error in programming can be isolated within a specific module. One need not search through the entire program to isolate the errors. Data is handled separately and therefore cannot be compromised. Each part of the program is treated as an object. Reusability can be achieved with object oriented programming.  Modern languages are all built with object oriented framework. In fact it is a breakthrough concept in computer programming.

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