Tomorrow's Technology and You 8/e Chapter 2

SIDE NOTES
Bit-
Byte-8 Bits
KB- Kibbyte 1024
MB- Megabyte 1024 to the power of 2
TB- Terabyte 1024 to the power of 3
PB- Pebibyte 1024 to the power of 4
EB- Exbibyte 1024 to the power of 5
ZB- Zebibyte 1024 to the power of 6
YB- Yottabyte 1024 to the power of 7

 

The Computer's Core the CPU and Memory

The  CPU: The Real Computer
 CPU (micro processor)

• Interprets and executes the instructions in each program
• Supervises arithmetic and logical data manipulations
• Communications with all the other parts of the computer system indirectly through memory
• An extrodinary complex collection of electronic circuits
• Housed along with other chips and electronic components on the motherboard

All software is not necessarily compatioble with every CPU.

• Software written for the Power PC family of processors used in Macintosh computers wont run on Intel processors
• Programs written from Linux cant run on Windows. ----> Both systems run on PCs powered by Intel's microprocessor
• CPUs in the same family are generally designed to be backward compatible. ---> Newer processors can process all of the instructions handled by earlier models.

• Applications requre faster machines to produce satisfactory results.
• A computer's overall perfomance is determine by:
• Its microprocessor's internal clock speed ---> measured in units called gigahertz (GHz) for billions of clock cycles per seccond.
• The architecture and word size of the processor

--High-end workstations and servers use 64-bit processor
--Most PCs and Macintoches use 32-bit processors
--Some embedded and special-purpose computers still use 8- and 16- bit processors

Techniques for speeding up a computer's performance:

• Parallel processing
• Server clusters

Total Point: 2