End of the Chapter

This ends the general overview of computer systems. At this point, you should have an idea of what computer systems are all about. But you will likely be uncertain about quite a few things. The following chapters will clarify some topics, and others will remain mystifying until later courses. For now, you may wish to review the following. Click on a subject that interests you to go to where it was discussed.

• Hardware and software.
• Major hardware components of a computer system
• Types of memory
• Characteristics of a hard disk.
• I/O devices
• Two categories of programs
• The operating system.
• How programs start running.
• Computer networks

The next chapter will discuss analog and binary signals and why binary signals are important in computer systems.