Chapter 1
Computer Systems and Software
Programmable software is what makes a computer a powerful tool. Each dif-
ferent program essentially “rewires” the computer to allow it to perform a
different task. In this course, you will learn basic principles of writing soft-
ware in the Python programming language.
Python is a popular scripting language available as a free download from
http://www.python.org/. Follow the instructions given there to install the
latest production version of Python 3 on your system. The examples in this
text were written with Python 3.2.
The CPU and RAM
In order to write software, it will be helpful to be able to imagine what
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