Sanders, Donald H., Computer Concepts and Applications. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.
This book is arranged to mirror certain computer applications, divided as it is into modules rather than book divisions and utilizing other computer terms for the chapters and sections of the book. There are four modules, each of which can be considered a major division in the subject matter.
This is the dawn of a new age, the computer age, with computers not only in business and other large-scale applications but also in the home in the form of the personal computer to perform a variety of tasks. With the pervasiveness of computers in both business and private life, there is a demand for computer literacy for the coming generation. This book is intended to provide a beginning toward computer literacy. The author begins by explaining what a computer is, in general times how it works, and what it can do. A computer may be used singly or as part of a larger system, and even a single computer is itself a system in terms of the way it links different elements together. The concept of a program and of how a program is stored and used is addressed. Computers come in different sizes according to the memory they possess, what amount of material they can store, what amount of work they can perform. The author also gives a good sense of how the computer developed from simple calculating machines of the past into the complex means for manipulating data that exists today.
The next topic is an important one--what a computer can do. There are four types of operation which computers: 1) Input/output; 2) Calculation and text manipulation; 3) logic/comparison; and 4) Storage and retrieval. Computers can perform these operations quickly and accurately. Here, as elsewhere in the book, the author uses the fictitious Byter family as examples of different computer users and computer uses. He offers examples of the different types of operation as well to...