Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Identify the different components of computer systems
• Describe the background and characteristics of Python
• Explain the writing, compilation and execution of a Python program

Lesson 1 of 11: Why learn to Program

To most of you, this module should be your first programming module. You might be wondering why do we need to learn programming languages. Let’s watch a short video on “Why learn to Program”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJqSu1IbcHg (about 6 mins)

Most of the things that you see in the video are not possible unless humans know how to communicate with the computers. Since computers only understand programming languages, we need to learn to program. The first step in learning programming is to know the hardware and software components of a computer system.

Lesson 2 of 11: Hardware Components of a Computer System

There are 5 main hardware components: Input Devices, Central Processing Unit (CPU), Main Memory, Secondary Storage Devices and Output Devices. Each of them performs a certain function.

Input Devices

Input Devices collects data for the processing by the computer. The input device can be a keyboard, a mouse, a microphone or a touchscreen.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

The CPU interprets and executes instructions. Instructions are what we write in a program. The CPU has three components:

Control Unit: extracts instructions from memory and decodes and executes them