Outcome 2 – “Evaluate current architectural standards”



11

A CPU is a Central Processing Unit. It consists of a "control unit" and an "alu" which is the "arithmetic logic unit". The control unit gets instructions for the alu to carry out. 


 


12
In the 1940's, Alan Turing and Von Neuman were the pioneers of the "modern computer" with their revolutionary "stored program concept", where they decided to design systems which stored programs and data together. This occurs mainly in the RAM.


 


13
The Fetch-Execute cycle is the process of which the control unit co-ordinates its operations. The processor "fetches" each instruction from the ram, and "executes" it. 


 


14
The job of the control bus is to carry control instructions to anywhere else within the motherboard. 


 


15
A "Word size" is also known as "code size", e.g. 16-bit words are codes compromised of 16 bits.   I think that a "word size" can affect the computer performance... considering the larger the word size, the more information is passed through the system and stored. 

 


16
An address bus fetches the "word" coming from any part of the motherboard, places it on the RAM as either a data or a program, and depending on it's address, is carried out by the control unit. 


 


17
The bigger the RAM size, the more address lines are needed. ONE address bus can address 2² RAM locations. another address bus added would be able to address 2⁴ RAM locations. 


 


18
If the address bus carries 32-bit numbers, there would be 4,294,967,296 bits of addresses in the RAM?  If each memory location contained 16 bits, the total size of the memory would be 68,719,476,736 bits. That is 67mb of RAM.


 


19
a "peripheral" device, is An auxiliary device, that works in conjunction with a computer.  This includes any sort of storage system, keyboard, monitor, mouse, printer, modem etc. 


 


20

The input/output controller is an interface.