Quiz 1 Flashcards
(20 cards)
What is a computer?
Machines that process data
What is a computer system?
A system that consists of hardware and software that work together to process data/complete tasks
What is hardware?
Physical components of a computer
What are examples of hardware
CPU, motherboard and monitor
What is software?
Programs that a computer runs
What are examples of software?
Word processors, games and emails
What are embedded systems?
Computer systems built into other systems
What are embedded systems often used as?
They are used as control systems. They monitor and control variables to achieve desired results
What are the properties of an embedded system?
They are easy to design
Cheap to produce
More efficient at doing their task then general purpose pc
What are examples of the computers components?
Power supply, motherboard, hard drive disks and cpu
What does the cpu stand for?
Central processing unit
What does the ALU stand for?
Arithmetic logic unit
What does the ALU do?
The ALU does all calculations
It performs logic operations such as AND,OR and NOT and binary shifts
What are the 5 main parts of the cpu?
the control unit, the arithmetic logic unit, cache, the clock and buses
What is cache?
cache is very fast memory in the CPU. It is slower than registers, but faster than RAM
it stores regularly used data so that the CPU can access it quickly the next time is needed, When
the CPU requests data, it checks cache first to see if the data is there. If not it will fetch it from RAM
Caches have a very low capacity and are expensive compared to RAM and secondary storage
What is the clock?
The clock sends out a signal that continually cycles between 1 and 0, usually at a constant rate
The signal is used to synchronise when instructions will be carried out
The number of clock cycles per second is called the clock speed
What are buses?
Buses are collections of wires that are used to transmit data between components of the cpu, and to other parts of the computer system
What is the control unit?
The control unit is in overall control of the CPU. Its main job is to manage the fetching,decoding and execution of a program instructions by following the fetch-execute cycle
it controls the flow of data inside the CPU( to registers,ALU, cache) and outside the CPU( to main memory and input/output devices)
What is the cpu
The cpu is the brain of the computer system
it processes all of the data and instructions that make a system work
The processing power of a cpu depends on different characteristics like its clock speed,number of cores and cache size and type
What system architeture do we use?
Von Neumann
