Based on Windows 10 & Office 2019

Get ready for an incredibly exciting year in the world of computing! Before we
dive into our first big chapter on "Networking Concepts" (which is all about
how computers connect and talk to each other across the globe!), Let's take a
comprehensive tour of all the amazing things you've learned so far. This
refresher will solidify your understanding from Class 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, ensuring
you're perfectly geared up for new challenges and discoveries!

Computer Fundamentals | Class 3

 Working of a Computer:
 Computers work in a simple cycle called (IPO) Input → Process → Output.
 Input: This is when you give information or commands to the computer.
 Process: This is when the CPU works on the information you gave it.
 Output: This is when the computer shows you the result of its work.
 Remember – Computer can make mistakes if we make mistakes in giving
wrong data. This is called "Garbage In, Garbage Out" (GIGO).
 Topic: Computer Manners
 Always ask permission before using a computer that isn't yours.
 Keep your computer area neat and clean, and don't eat or drink near it.
 Be gentle with the keyboard, mouse; don't hit or press them too hard.
 Shut down the computer correctly to protect its system.
 Sit properly while using the computer (good posture) to avoid back pain.
 Don't share your personal information with strangers online.
Introduction to Data and Information | Class 4
 What is Data?
 Data refers to facts that we give to the computer. It's unorganized and might
not make sense on its own.
 What is Information?

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 When the computer (its CPU, the brain!) processes or organizes the data, it
becomes information. Information is meaningful and useful.
 What are Data Storage Units
 Computers deal with a lot of data and information. Computers have their
own units to measure the amount of data!
 The smallest piece of data a computer can understand is called a Bit.
 A group of 8 Bits makes a Byte.
 Here's how larger amounts of data are measured:
 Kilobyte (KB): About 1,000 Bytes.
 Megabyte (MB): About 1,000 Kilobytes.
 Gigabyte (GB): About 1,000 Megabytes.
 Terabyte (TB): About 1,000 Gigabytes.
 What are the Types of Memory
 Primary Memory (also called Main Memory)
 Secondary Memory (also called Storage)
 Storage Devices
 These are the actual hardware parts where Secondary Memory (long-term
memory) is stored.
 Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
 Pen Drive (USB Flash Drive)
 Compact Disc (CD) and Digital Versatile Disc (DVD)
 Solid State Drives (SSD)
 Memory Cards

History of Computers (Class 5)

 Counting Through Time (Early Computing Devices)
 Abacus (The Ancient Calculator)
 The Abacus is one of the oldest known calculating devices, used for
thousands of years in places like China and Japan. It's a wooden or plastic
frame with rods, and colorful beads slide along those rods.

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 Napier's Bones (The Multiplication Helper)
 A Scottish mathematician named John Napier invented this in the early
[Link] looked like a set of marked rods (like bones, which is why it's
called "Napier's Bones"!). Each rod had numbers printed on it.
 Pascaline (The First Adding Machine!)
 A brilliant French scientist named Blaise Pascal in the mid-1600s (around
1642, invented [Link] was a real mechanical calculator! It was a box with
lots of gears and wheels. You would turn dials to put in numbers.
 It's considered one of the very first true mechanical calculators in the
world. It showed that machines could do math automatically.
 Leibniz Calculator (Pascaline's Upgrade!)
 A German mathematician named Gottfried Leibniz invented this in the late
1600s (around 1673).
 His machine could not only add and subtract, but also multiply and divide!
 It was more advanced and complex than the Pascaline and could do all
kinds of math, not just simple addition.
 The Visionaries: Father of Computers & The First Programmer
 Charles Babbage (The Father of Computers)
 He was an English mathematician, inventor, and mechanical engineer born
in 1791 and is widely known as the "Father of the Computer"
 He first designed a machine called the Difference Engine. It was meant
to calculate long math tables (like tables for navigation) automatically
and without mistakes.
 Then, he came up with an even more amazing idea: the Analytical Engine,
which was designed to do any type of calculation, not just one! It had
parts like "Input," "Process," and "Output" and even a "Store" part .
 Ada Lovelace (The World's First Computer Programmer)
 The daughter of a famous poet, Lord Byron, Augusta Ada King, Countess
of Lovelace, was a brilliant English mathematician and writer (born in

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 1815) who was a close friend and collaborator of Charles Babbage and
was a visionary who understood the power of software.
 She wrote detailed notes and algorithms (step-by-step instructions) for
how the Analytical Engine could calculate Bernoulli numbers, which is
considered the first computer program ever written.
 Pre-Electronic Computers
Before computers used electricity and tiny chips, there were other clever
machines preparing the way!
 Herman Hollerith & The Tabulating Machine
 American inventor and statistician named Herman Hollerith in the late
1800s (around 1890) invented the Tabulating Machine to help process
data from the 1890 United States Census.
 His machine used punch cards. Data (like names, ages) was punched as
holes on cardboard cards. The machine would then read these holes very
quickly to count and sort information.
 It proved that machines could process huge amounts of data quickly and
accurately using electricity.
 This idea of using punch cards was very important for early computers.
 He even started a company that later became IBM!
The Different Eras of Computers (Generations!)
 Computers have made incredible leaps in technology, becoming smaller,
faster, cheaper, and more powerful over time which are called Generations."
 First Generation Computers (1940s - 1950s)
 These computers used glowing glass tubes called Vacuum Tubes and were
very big and used a lot of electricity, producing a lot of heat.
 They were very slow and could only do one job at a time. You would put
instructions in using punch cards.
 One famous first-generation computer was called ENIAC.
 Second Generation Computers (1950s - 1960s)

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 Scientists invented something much smaller and better than vacuum tubes:
Transistors, which were tiny switches.
 Because of transistors, computers became much smaller and also used less
electricity and produced less heat.
 They were faster and more reliable. People started writing programs using
computer languages that were easier to understand.
 Third Generation Computers (1960s - 1970s)
 With the invention of the Integrated Circuit (IC), also known as a 'chip' which
is a tiny piece of silicon (a type of material) with many transistors packed
onto it, computers became even smaller, faster, and more affordable. They
could do many tasks at once (Multi Tasking).
 For the first time, people could use keyboards and monitors directly with
these computers, and they even had an operating system (Windows).
 Fourth Generation Computers (1970s - Today)
 Invention of the Microprocessor, a tiny chip that contains all the important
parts of the CPU on one small piece, brought us personal computers (PCs)
– the desktop and laptop computers!
 We got amazing graphics, networking (connecting computers together), and
the Internet started to become popular!
 Fifth Generation Computers (Today & Future) - Thinking Like Humans!
 These computers are still being developed! They are all about Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and are becoming even smarter, understanding natural
language processing (NLP), and solving complex problems.
 This generation focuses on making computers that can learn from
experience, make decisions, and even understand human speech like Voice
assistants (Siri or Google Assistant), smart robots, and self-driving cars.
The Amazing Computer Journey of India!
 The Early Days (1950s - 1960s):
 India got its very first digital computer in 1955 at the Indian Statistical
Institute in Kolkata.

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 Soon after, Indian scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
(TIFR) in Mumbai built India's first home-made computer called TIFRAC.
 The Software Boom (1980s - 2000s):
 In the 1980s and 90s, India became famous for software – the programs
that make computers work.
 Big companies like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, and Wipro
grew rapidly, making software for businesses all around the world.
 The city of Bengaluru (Bangalore) became known as the 'Silicon Valley of
India' because so many computer companies started there.
 Building Our Own Supercomputer! (1991):
 A very proud moment came in 1991 when India developed its own
supercomputer called PARAM 8000.
 This powerful machine was built by Indian scientists at C-DAC (Centre for
Development of Advanced Computing), proving India's amazing skills in
complex computing.
Speaking to Computers! – Computer Languages | Class 6
 Let's refresh our knowledge about how humans actually "talk" to
computers using special languages!
 What Are Computer Languages?
 Computers are machines that only understand commands in a very specific
way – like a light switch that's either ON or OFF. They understand
instructions given in electric signals (pulses of electricity).
 Why Computers Need Languages
 Our words are too complex: Our human languages (like English, Hindi, Tamil)
are too complex for a computer to understand directly. They have too many
words, different meanings, and tricky grammar.
 The need for "Computer Languages": So, we need special "languages" that
computers can understand. These are called Computer Languages or
Programming Languages.

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 Giving Instructions: A computer language is a set of rules and instructions
used to tell a computer what to do. It's like giving step-by-step commands
to a very obedient (but very literal) robot!
 Programs: When we write many instructions in a computer language, we
create a program (also called software). This program then tells the
computer how to perform a task, like playing a game, drawing a picture, or
calculating sums.
 Types of Languages (Overview)
 Over time, computer languages have evolved (just like computers
themselves!). We can broadly divide them into two main categories:
 Low-Level Languages: These are very close to what the computer hardware
understands. They are difficult for humans to read and write.
 High-Level Languages: These are more like human languages and are much
easier for us to read, write, and understand.
 Low-Level Languages
 These are the oldest types of computer languages. They are called "low-
level" because they are very close to how the computer's electronic circuits
actually work, and very far from how humans speak or think.

 Machine Language (The Computer's Native Tongue)

 The First Generation Language: Machine language is the first and oldest
generation of computer languages. It's the only language a computer
understands directly without needing any translation. Machine language
uses only two symbols: 0 (zero) and 1 (one). This system is called Binary
Code.
 Think of '0' as an "off" switch (no electricity) and '1' as an "on" switch
(electricity flowing).
 Every instruction, every piece of data, every number, and every letter is
turned into a combination of 0s and 1s for the computer to understand.

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 Disadvantages of Machine Language
 Hard to read and write: It's extremely difficult for humans to write
programs in machine language because it's just long strings of 0s and 1s.
 Prone to errors: Even a tiny mistake (like one 0 instead of a 1) can cause
the whole program to fail.
 Machine Dependent: A program written for one type of computer might
not work on another because their "0s and 1s" might mean different
things.
 Why it was used: In the very early days of computers, this was the only
way to program them!
 Assembly Language (A Step Up from Binary)
 The Second-Generation Language: Assembly language was developed to
make programming a little easier than machine language. It's the second
generation of computer languages.
 Uses Mnemonics (Short Codes): Instead of only 0s and 1s, Assembly
language uses short codes or abbreviations called mnemonics (pronounced:
nee-MON-iks). These mnemonics are easy for humans to remember.
 Example: Instead of 00101101, you might use ADD (for addition), SUB (for
subtraction), MOV (for moving data).
 Disadvantages of Assembly Language
 Still Needs Translation: Even though it uses words, the computer still
doesn't understand Assembly language directly. It needs a special
program called an Assembler to translate Assembly language into
machine language (0s and 1s).
 Easier, but still difficult: It's easier than machine language, but still very
difficult to write complex programs. It's also still machine-dependent
(meaning a program for one type of computer might not work on
another).

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 High-Level Languages
 As computers became more powerful, people wanted to write programs
more easily and quickly. This led to the development of High-Level
Languages. They are called "high-level" because they are much closer to
human languages.
 Why High-Level Languages?
 Easier for Humans: High-level languages use words and mathematical
symbols that are very similar to English. This makes them much easier for
programmers to read, write, and understand.
 Less Errors: Because they are easier to understand, there are fewer chances
of making mistakes while writing programs.
 Machine Independent: Unlike low-level languages, a program written in a
high-level language can often run on different types of computers, as long
as each computer has a special translator program. This makes them very
popular.
 Faster Programming: You can write programs much faster in high-level
languages compared to low-level ones.
 Common High-Level Languages (Examples)
 There are many different high-level languages, each good for different types
of tasks. Here are some important ones:
 FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation):
 One of the first high-level languages.
 Created in the 1950s.
 Mainly used for scientific and mathematical calculations.
 COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language):
 Created in the 1950s.
 Mainly used for business applications (like managing bank accounts or
inventory). It's very good at handling large amounts of data.
 BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code):
 Created in the 1960s.

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  Designed to be simple and easy for beginners to learn programming.
Many of your parents might have started learning programming with
BASIC!
 C++:
 A very powerful and popular language created in the 1970s.
 Used for creating operating systems (like parts of Windows), games, and
complex software.
 Java:
 A very popular language created in the 1990s.
 Known for its slogan "Write Once, Run Anywhere." This means a Java
program can run on many different types of devices (computers, phones,
smart TVs) without changes.
 Used for mobile apps (Android apps), web applications, and large
systems.
 Python:
 A very popular and beginner-friendly language created in the 1990s.
 Known for its simple and readable code.
 Used for web development, artificial intelligence (AI), data analysis,
games, and many other applications. It's a great language to learn if you
want to start coding!
 Generations of Computer Languages (A Quick Journey)
 Just like computers themselves, computer languages have evolved through
different "generations," each making programming easier and more
powerful.
 First Generation (1GL): Machine Language (0s and 1s) - Directly understood
by the computer, but very hard for humans.
 Second Generation (2GL): Assembly Language (Mnemonics like ADD, SUB) -
A bit easier, but still needs an Assembler to translate.

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 Third Generation (3GL): High-Level Languages (like FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC,
C++, Java, Python) - Much closer to human language, uses Compilers or
Interpreters to translate. These are very widely used today.
 Fourth Generation (4GL): These languages are even closer to natural human
language, often used for database management or specific tasks. They
require very few instructions to do a lot of work. (e.g., SQL for databases).
 Fifth Generation (5GL): These are still evolving. They aim to allow
computers to solve problems without the programmer specifying how to
solve them, focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and natural language
understanding. You just tell the computer "what to do," and it figures out
"how."
The Secret Language of Numbers! | From Class 7
 Now, let's refresh our memory about the different number systems
computers use and how they work. This is important because computers
fundamentally operate using these systems!
 Introduction to Number Systems
 A Number System is simply a way of representing numbers. It's a set of
symbols and rules that let us show quantities.
 Just like different languages use different alphabets, different number
systems use different sets of digits and rules.
 We use number systems every day to count. Computers also need a number
system to process information, but they use a special one that's different
from ours!
 Why Computers Use Different Number Systems
 Computers understand only Machine Language, which is made up of 0s and
1s (binary code).
 This is because computers are electronic devices.
 They work with electrical signals: '1' can mean the electrical signal is ON
(current flowing), and '0' can mean it's OFF (no current flowing).

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 This makes the binary number system perfect for computers to store and
process data.
 Base (Radix) of a Number System
 Every number system has a Base (also called Radix).
 The Base tells us two important things:
 1. How many unique digits are used in that number system.
 2. The value of each position in a number.
 Example:
 Decimal system (our everyday counting): Uses 10 digits (0-9). Its Base is
10.
 Binary system (computer's language): Uses 2 digits (0, 1). Its Base is 2.
 The base is usually written as a small subscript number (e.g., 1012, 2510).
 Common Number Systems in Computers
 Decimal Number System (Base-10)
 This is the number system you use every single day!
 Digits Used: 10 unique digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
 Base: Its Base is 10.
 Positional Value: The value of each digit depends on its position. Each
position represents a power of 10.
 Example: 34510=(3×102)+(4×101)+(5×100)
 Binary Number System (Base-2)
 This is the most important number system for computers. It's the
language computers understand!
 Digits Used: Only 2 unique digits: 0 and 1.
 Base: Its Base is 2.
 Positional Value: Each position represents a power of 2.
 Example: 1012=(1×22)+(0×21)+(1×20)=4+0+1=510.
 Bits: Each '0' or '1' is called a bit (short for binary digit).
 Octal Number System (Base-8)
 Sometimes used in computers.

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  Digits Used: 8 unique digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
 Base: Its Base is 8.
 Positional Value: Each position represents a power of 8.
 Example: 1278=(1×82)+(2×81)+(7×80)=64+16+7=8710.
 Relationship to Binary: 3 binary bits represent one octal digit (23=8).
 Hexadecimal Number System (Base-16)
 Widely used by programmers and in computer memory addressing.
 Digits Used: 16 unique symbols: 0-9, and A, B, C, D, E, F (where A=10,
B=11, ..., F=15).
 Base: Its Base is 16.
 Positional Value: Each position represents a power of 16.
 Example: 1A16=(1×161)+(A×160)=(1×16)+(10×1)=16+10=2610.
 Relationship to Binary: 4 binary bits represent one hexadecimal digit
(24=16).
 Number System Conversions
 Since we use Decimal and computers use Binary, we need to know how to
convert numbers.
 Decimal to Binary Conversion
 Use the "Division by 2" method.
Steps:
 Divide the decimal number by 2.
 Write down the remainder (0 or 1).
 Divide the quotient by 2 again.
 Repeat until quotient is 0.
 Collect remainders in reverse order (bottom to top).
 Binary to Decimal Conversion
 Use the "Positional Value" method.
Steps:
 Write the binary number.
 Assign powers of 2 to each digit (from 20 for the rightmost digit).

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  Multiply each binary digit by its corresponding power of 2.
 Add all the products.
 Sub Topic: Other Important Conversions (Introduction)
 Binary to Octal: Group binary digits into sets of three from right to left, then
convert each group to its octal equivalent.
 Example: 1101012→110 101→6 5→658.
 Octal to Binary: Convert each octal digit into its 3-bit binary equivalent.
 Example: 658→110 101→1101012.
 Binary to Hexadecimal: Group binary digits into sets of four from right to
left, then convert each group to its hexadecimal equivalent.
 Example: 111010112→1110 1011→E B→EB16.
 Hexadecimal to Binary: Convert each hexadecimal digit into its 4-bit binary
equivalent.
 Example: EB16→1110 1011→111010112.

You've just completed an incredible and thorough review of all the foundational
computer concepts from Class 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7!
You have a deep understanding of:
 The fundamental components and operations of a computer.
 How data is stored and processed, and its various units.
 The fascinating history and evolution of computers through generations.
 The different types of computer languages and how they are translated.
 The crucial number systems (especially Binary) that form the very core
of how computers work internally.
This vast and strong knowledge base is the perfect launchpad for your Class
8 journey, starting with "Networking Concepts"!
You'll discover how individual computers, which speak in binary and run
programs you've learned about, connect and communicate with each other to
form powerful networks and even the global internet.
Get ready to explore the interconnected digital world!

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