The field of Computer Science and Communication Engineering has drawn the attention of not only Scientists and Engineers but also of the common man. The advent of Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits (VLSI) technology and sophisticated computer software have resulted in smaller size high speed, highly reliable, more powerful, and cost-effective computer systems. Such phenomenal developments have enabled even the common man to share the global markets. At this juncture, an introductory course on computers for first year students of all disciplines of engineering polytechnic and applied sciences is essential and would help the students in their future endeavours. The Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education, Mumbai (MSBTE) has included the course ‘Elements of Computers and Computer Fundamentals’ for first year diploma students of Computer Engineering group from academic year 2001-2002. Though this textbook is mainly developed for these students, it will prove useful for students from any other background as well.

This textbook not only introduces the concepts, fundamentals and principles of computers but also provides an in-depth treatise to the latest technology.

This textbook does not assume any prior knowledge of computers on the part of the reader. All the aspects of computer science are dealt with and presented thoroughly and systematically in a simple and lucid style. The organization of the book is as follows:

Chapter 1 deals with the definition, classification and potential application of the computer systems pertaining to the modern world. This chapter also deals with the historical and chronological development of computer systems, an overview of the computer architecture and organisation and the impact of computers on society. This chapter also elucidates the functional activities of the various parts of a microcomputer. Input devices, output devices, and various storage devices are also presented in this chapter.

Chapter 2 elucidates the concepts of number systems and codes and their uses related to the field of computer science and engineering.

Chapter 3 highlights the chronological development of the programming languages over a period of time and the positives and negatives of high-level programming languages over low-level programming languages. Classification of software is discussed along with introduction to system software and application software.

Chapter 4 gives the salient features of operating systems (OS), file operations, data processing. It introduces the various syntaxes and functions of the internal and external DOS commands of MS-DOS (ver 6.22).

The commands, syntactic operations and functions of Microsoft Windows 98. Operating system are methodologically covered in Chapter 5.

The commands and salient features of various tools within the Microsoft Office 2000 Professional Release namely, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are covered in Chapter 6.

Concepts and applications of the Internet, Internet services such as e-mail, WWW, FTP, IRC, etc. are discussed in Chapter 7.

Constructive suggestions from the readers for further improvement of the book are welcome.

D RAVICHANDRAN
A B PATIL