I will try to be as organized as I can to make you guys understand Computer, but as and when I will read something new I will not hesitate to share it with you, just because it is messing up with my story.
What is a Computer, it’s an electronic device which can perform a variety of operations in accordance with a set of instructions called a program. We are using a computer as a data processor, a raw collection of facts and figures termed data is processed under given set of instructions and then presented to us which makes sense to us and become a part of Information pool.
So how does a computer function?
Computer functions in three steps:
a) Input b) Process c) Output
a) Input: The instructions that we feed into computers via various devices, like keyboard, mouse, OCR, OMR etc. The instructions which we human can understand has to get converted into a form which a computer can understand, mostly computer understandable language is in bits(1’s & 0’s), why 0/1 only, we will come to that part later. This is the task of input units to convert human understandable instructions into computer understandable instructions.
b) Process: In the second step, the data or instructions which got entered into a computer has to be processed, this has to be done by a CPU (Central Processing Unit) which you can also call brain of the computer. The brain of the computer process the data as per a defined set of instructions and generate a meaningful information which we can use.
c) Output: The third step is the step which presents the processed data in a form of useful information to the human world, which humans can understand and make a meaning out of it and take further downstream decisions based on that. Information presented via a display device or printing device or an audio device, just like several input modes, there are several output modes also available.
You can say which component is most important in case of a computer, my reply would be all three, Always remember this term GIGO: Garbage In Garbage Out, if at any point the input is some garbage value, the output is bound to produce garbage results only.