SUMMARY

Congratulations you have just finished chapter 3. By now you should be convinced that anyone, with a little study, can understand digital computers. You probably thought when you first started this NEETS MODULE that it would get more difficult as your studies progressed. Our objective was to show you that the more you learn, the easier the material is to understand.

OPERATING SYSTEMS are a collection of many programs used by the computer to manage its own resources and operations and to perform commonly used functions like copy, print, and so on.

UTILITY PROGRAMS perform such tasks as sorting, merging, and transferring (copying) data from one input/output device to another: card to tape, tape to tape, tape to disk, and so on.

SORT-MERGE PROGRAMS arrange data records in a predefined sequence or order and are capable of combining two or more ordered files into one file.

REPORT PROGRAM GENERATORS are used to generate programs to print detail and summary reports of data files.

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES are the means by which human-computer communication is achieved. They are used to write the instructions to tell the computer what to do to solve a given problem.

A MACHINE LANGUAGE uses a string of numbers that represent the instruction codes and operand addresses to tell the computer what to do.

SYMBOLIC LANGUAGES improved the program preparation process by substituting letter symbols (mnemonic codes) for basic machine language instruction codes.

A PROCEDURE ORIENTED LANGUAGE is a programming language oriented toward a specific class of processing problems. Examples are BASIC, COBOL, and FORTRAN.

PROGRAMMING is the process of planning and coding the computer instructions to solve a problem.

FLOWCHARTING is one method of pictorially representing a procedural (step-by-step) solution to a problem before you actually start to write the computer instructions required to produce the desired results.

PACKAGED SOFTWARE is designed for specific classes of applications. Examples are word processing, spreadsheets, data management, and graphics. These off-the-shelf programs are written by the manufacturer, a software house, or a central design agency.