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INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER
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writen on 5th October 2008
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he development of the modern day computer was the result of advances in technology and man’s need to quantify; in other words, enumerate, count or compute his physical problem. As a result, many scholars contributed to the development of this latest and greatest technology called computer. Some of these scholars include Abacus; a wooden rack holding two horizontal wires with beads strung on them. When these beads are moved around, according to Programming rules memorized by the user, all regular arithmetic problems can be done. Another important invention around the same time was the Astrolabe, used for navigation. Blaise Pascal is usually credited for building the first digital computer in 1642. It added numbers entered with dials and was made to help his father, a tax collector. In 1671, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented a computer that was built in 1694. It could add, and, after changing some things around, multiply. Leibniz invented a special stepped gear mechanism for introducing the addend digits, and this is still being used.
The prototypes made by Pascal and Leibniz were not used in many places, and considered weird and wonderful until a little more than a century later, while Thomas of Colmar created the first successful mechanical calculator that could add, subtract, multiply, and divide, interesting developments in computers was started in Cambridge, England, by Charles Babbage a mathematics professor. In 1812, Babbage
realized that many long calculations, especially those needed to make mathematical tables, were really a series of predictable actions that were constantly repeated. From this he suspected that it should be possible to do these automatically. He began to design an automatic mechanical calculating machine, which he called a difference engine. By 1822, he had a working model to demonstrate with. With financial help from the British government, Babbage started fabrication of a difference engine in 1823. It was intended to be steam powered and fully automatic, including the printing of the resulting tables, and commanded by a fixed instruction supposed to operate automatically, by steam power, and require only one person there. Babbage’s computers were never finished. Various reasons are used for his failure. Most used is the lack of precision machining techniques at the time. Another speculation is that Babbage was working on a solution of a problem that few people in 1840 really needed to solve. A step towards automated computing was the development of punched cards, which were first successfully used with computers in 1890 by Herman Hollerith and James Powers, who worked for the US. Census Bureau. They developed devices that could read the information that had been punched into the cards automatically, without human help. Because of this, reading errors were reduced dramatically, work flow increased, and, most importantly, stacks of punched cards could be used as easily accessible memory of almost unlimited size. Furthermore, different problems could be stored on different stacks of cards and accessed when needed. These advantages were seen by commercial companies and soon led to the development of improved punch-card using computers created by International Business Machines (IBM in 1924). These computers used electromechanical devices in which electrical power provided mechanical motion — like turning the wheels of an adding machine. Such systems included features to:
As compared to today’s machines, these computers were slow, usually processing 50 - 220 cards per minute, each card holding about 80 decimal numbers (characters). At the time, however, punched cards were a huge step forward. They provided a means of I/O, and memory storage on a huge scale. For more than 50 years after their first use, punched card machines did most of the world’s first business computing, and a considerable amount of the computing work in science. Along the line, a mathematician called John Von Neumann contributed a new awareness of how practical, yet fast computers should be organized and built. These ideas, usually referred to as the stored - program technique, became essential for future generations of high - speed digital computers and were universally adopted.
The Stored - Program technique involves many features of computer design and function besides the one that it is named after. In combination, these features make very - high - speed operation attainable.
DEFINITIONS OF COMPUTER
omputer can be defined as electronic device that is capable of accepting data as an input, store data, process data and give out information as output. From all the content of this definition you can draft out five important words there which are:
1. Accepting data,
2. Processing data,
3. Storing data,
4. Outputting data and
5. Data.
1. Accepting data: computer has the ability to accept data through an impute devices such as mouse, keyboard, joystick, scanner etc. That is why computer is said to work under predefined instruction because it has been programmed to accept instruction from the user before it cans perform the task.
2. Processing data: computer has the ability of any data or instruction sent to it through the processing device called processor.
3. Storing data: this is the ability of computer to retain whatsoever that has been sent to for so long. This is achieved by computer through its storage devices such as hard disk drive, floppy diskette, flash drive, etc.
4. Outputting data: computer also has the ability of giving out what it has processed through output devices such as monitor, printer, plotter, speaker, etc.
5. Data: finally, is about data that we have been hearing on the contest of computer definition. A data is simply a raw fact; in other words is unprocessed information. We have four type of date and they are as follows:
1. Alphabetic data: It is letters of alphabet found on computer keyboard ranging from A-Z.
2. Numeric data: It is numbers found on computer keyboard ranging from 0-9; marvel not, in computer numbers are counted from 0,1,2, to 9 and every other numbers can be formed from it.
3. Alphanumeric data: This is the combination of alphabetic data and number; in computer keyboard, you can call functional keys alphanumeric but when alphabetic data and numeric data are combined in a text, it is termed alphanumeric data.
4. Special characters: They are neither alphabetic nor numeric date but are used in modifying command. Such character include /, =? ( * ) ^ % & # etc.
Computer is vital in all human life as a result ignorant of computer by any individual will amount more harm than good; thus vision citizens press forward in getting the knowledge of computer as not to be left behind in the world of technology. “Get the knowledge first you will not regret you did; knowledge is power
CHAPTER TWO
INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRONIC SPREADSHEET
preadsheets have been used by accountants for hundreds of years. Computerized or electronic spreadsheets are of much more recent origin. Information History and some published newspaper and magazine stories celebrate Dan Bricklin as the "father" of the electronic spreadsheet. In 1978, HarvardBusinessSchool student, Daniel Bricklin, came up with the idea for an interactive visible calculator. Bricklin and Bob Frankston then co-invented or co-created the software program VisiCalc. We can look back and recognize that VisiCalc was the first "killer" application for personal computers.
L-R DAN BRICKLIN AND BOB FRANKSTON APPROX. 1980
In 1961, Professor Richard Mattessich pioneered the development of computerized spreadsheets for use in business accounting. Rene Pardo and Remy Landau co-invented "LANPAR" LANguage for Programming Arrays at Random in 1969. This electronic spreadsheet type application was used for budgeting at BellCanada, AT&T, Bell operating companies, and General Motors. They received a US patent (no. 4,398,249) for LANPAR in August 1982 after 12 years of litigation. Mattessich, Pardoe and Landau's work and that of other developers of spreadsheets on mainframe computers probably had no influence on Bricklin and Frankston. Therefore, a history of the modern era of microcomputer-based electronic spreadsheets should begin with the "Tale of VisiCalc".
Another electronic spreadsheet application program is Lotus 1-2-3 made it easier to use spreadsheets and it added integrated charting, plotting and database capabilities. Lotus 1-2-3 established spreadsheet software as a major data presentation package as well as a complex calculation tool. Lotus was also the first spreadsheet vendor to introduce naming cells, cell ranges and spreadsheet macros.
The next milestone was the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Excel was originally written for the 512K Apple Macintosh in 1984-1985. Excel was one of the first spreadsheets to use a graphical interface with pull down menus and a point and click capability using a mouse pointing device. The Excel spreadsheet with a graphical user interface was easier for most people to use than the command line interface of PC-DOS spreadsheet products. Many people bought Apple Macintoshes so that they could use Bill Gates' Excel spreadsheet program. There is some controversy about whether a graphical version of Microsoft Excel was released in a DOS version. Microsoft documents show the launch of Excel 2.0 for MS-DOS version 3.0 on 10/31/87. When Microsoft launched the Windows operating system in 1987, Excel was one of the first application products released for it. When Windows finally gained wide acceptance with Version 3.0 in late 1989 Excel was Microsoft's flagship product. For nearly 3 years, Excel remained the only Windows spreadsheet program and it has only received competition from other spreadsheet products since the summer of 1992. By the late 1980s many companies had introduced spreadsheet products. Spreadsheet products and the spreadsheet software industry were maturing. Microsoft and Bill Gates had joined the fray with the innovative Excel spreadsheet. Lotus had acquired Software Arts and the rights to VisiCalc. Jim Manzi had become CEO at Lotus in April 1986 and in July 1986 Mitch Kapor resigned as Chairman of the Board, while scholars are working hand in hand for more improvement on electronic spreadsheet; but for now Microsoft Excel is still the order of the day as far as electronic spreadsheet is concern.
WHAT IS A SPREADSHEET
n the realm of accounting jargon a "spread sheet" or spreadsheet is a large sheet of paper with columns and rows that organizes data about transactions for a business person to examine. It spreads or shows all of the costs, income, taxes, and other related data on a single sheet of paper for a manager to examine when making a decision. An electronic spreadsheet organizes information into software defined columns and rows. The data can then be "added up" by a formula to give a total or sum. The spreadsheet program summarizes information from many paper sources in one place and presents the information in a format to help a decision maker see the financial "big picture" for the company. Hence spreadsheet is a document that appears in series of columns and rows. A column is the vertical alignment of lines while rows are the horizontal alignment of lines and the interception of them forms the cell which is the space for data imputer.
We have two types of spreadsheet and they are electronic spreadsheet and manual spreadsheet. But these two types will be discus fully in chapter three of this project work. .
CHAPTER 3
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MANUAL SPREADSHEET AND ELECTRONIC SPREADSHEET SYSTEM
s I said in the contest of spreadsheet definition that we have two types of spreadsheet which include manual and electronic; to start with, we will take them one after the other.
A POCKET DIARY SEEN AS MANUAL SPREADSHEET
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Manual spreadsheet system is simply calculation and keeping of record which is done by hand on a sheet of paper. To draw you back home, the use of workbook; which is mostly use by accountant for monetary analysis and record-keeping of daily sales, the use of invoice by merchants and product dealers, the use of diary by people to keep records of their friends, (which include the persons’ name, address, phone number, age, gender etc.) are all done by hands and can simply be called manual spreadsheet.
The funny part is that most time you put your workbook or diary in your pocket; for example is that of astronomical pocket diary as you can see below.
ELECTRONIC SPREADSHEET SYSTEM
s you have seen from the previously visited page (i.e. page 12), that manual spreadsheet is all about keeping of records and account analysis which are done by hand; we shall then look into electronic spreadsheet system in this page.
Electronic spreadsheet system is simply the use of electronic computer and some application program in it (e.g. Microsoft Excel), to perform the mathematical calculations and record-keeping. Thus, electronic spreadsheet is documents that appear series of columns and rows which are seen on the screen of a computer system. Examples of these electronic spreadsheet program has been explained briefly on chapter two of this project, but one of them are to be look into on this chapter; and that is Microsoft Excel.
DEFINITION OF MICROSOFT EXCEL
Microsoft Excel is defined as electronic spreadsheet application program which is used to perform mathematical operation and keeping of record. It is one of the product that makes-up Microsoft office suit, thus it comes in various versions of such as office 95, 98, 2000, 2003, XP, etc. It is manufactured by Microsoft Corporation of America own by Bill Gate.
GETTING STARTED WITH MICROSOFT EXCEL
It is the practical steps that are involved on launching Microsoft Excel program on the screen of computer monitor.
Steps:
1. Click on start button.
2. From start menu, point to ‘All program’.
3. From All program sub-menu, click on Microsoft Excel name and icon.
And wait for it to load, as you can see bellow on the diagram.
SCREEN FEATURES OF MICROSOFT EXCELAND COMPARISOM OVERVIEW
aving launch Microsoft Excel program on your screen, let’s have a close look at its screen in order to compare it with that of manual spreadsheet system (using account workbook as example) which we have seen on page 12.
From the above diagram, one can see that Excel screen is more of electronically than that of the pocket diary and accounting workbook we saw in page 12, although both share one feature such as columns and rows but the difference is clear in the sense that Microsoft Excel screen has all these: title bar, menu bar, standard toolbar, formatting toolbar, name box, formular bar, help box, to mention but a few; which are not seen on manual spreadsheet system.
MICROSOFT EXCEL TERMINOLOGY
These are terms used in Microsoft Excel program and they include:
1. Workbook: The is unsaved work done in Microsoft Excel program; it is the document that contain the worksheet.
2. Worksheet: It is that spread-out sheet of electronic paper that appears in series of columns and rows. It is three in number by default found in a workbook..
3. Columns: it is the vertical alignment of lines in a worksheet. It is lettered A-IV.
4. Rows: It is the horizontal alignment of lines in a worksheet. It is numbered from 1-65536.
5. Name Box: it displays the Cell address of an active cell.
6. Formulae Bar: it displays the content of an active cell.
7. Active cell indicator: It is a rectangular bar that indicates the cell that is active in Microsoft Excel screen.
8. Fill Handle: it is a tick square attached to an active cell indicator which when mouse pointer is place on it and click and drag copies the content of the cell to the preceding cells.
9. Bold Cross: it is use to select cell or series of cells.
10. Plus Sign: It appeared when the mouse pointer is pointed on the fill handle. It is use to copy the content of an active cell.
11. Double Arrow: It is use to move the content of an active cell from one location to another.
12. Double Direction Arrow: It is use to resize the columns and rows manually, etc.
CHAPTER 4
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
n my summary and conclusion, I can say it again that electronic spreadsheet has dominated the use of manual spreadsheet system because of its mode of operation which makes it easer for one to analyze his or her record. Microsoft inventor, known as Bill Gate among others has contributed a lot in solving these problems of record analyses which the manual method has created.
Further more, the application of electronic spreadsheet system in all sector of work such as Banks, Schools, Mining industries Workshops, Hospitals, to mention but a few has make it compulsory that one must get the knowledge of electronic spreadsheet program (e.g. Microsoft Excel, Lotus 123, etc).”GET the knowledge NOW”.
PROBLEMS AND LIMITATION
t has always been said that, which I found to be true, that ‘No good thing that has ever been accomplish without some hindrances attached to it’; mine is not an exception. I experience a lot of setback in during the course of my project-work preparation; first is that of virus attack which mean reformatting my flash disk and frequent scanning as I learnt that it s the precautionary measures against virus attack.
Engr. I.E.Muoma a 22 year-young boy hail from Nkarafia Irefi Orifite Anambra State Nigeria. He is an undergraduate and currently working as a computer instructor at Cyber World Dot Com Ltd,Nnewi Nigeria.(All right reserved no piracy will be spared.)
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