Introduction to Computing - CS101 Comprehensive Review

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the CS101 Introduction to Computing course modules, including hardware, software, protocols, networking, and algorithms.

Computer Science

The discipline that seeks to build a scientific foundation for hardware, software, programming, networks, graphics, robots, databases, security, algorithmic solutions, and information processing.

Hardware

The collection of physical parts of a computer system including the case, monitor, keyboard, mouse, hard disk drive, motherboard, and video card.

Software

A set of instructions and its documentations that tells a computer what to do or how to perform a task.

Algorithm

An ordered set of unambiguous, executable steps that defines a terminating process.

Breadth First Learning

A strategy of learning that gives a basic introduction to almost all courses of a field before covering one particular course in detail.

Query

The set of words given to a search engine for searching.

Case-insensitive

A characteristic where a system, such as Google, does not distinguish between capital letters and small letters.

Boolean Operators

Operators such as "And" and "Or" used to find relevant web pages containing specific word combinations.

Abacus

An early computing device consisting of beads strung on rods mounted in a rectangular frame, with roots in ancient China.

ENIAC

$\text{electronic numerical integrator and calculator}$ developed at the University of Pennsylvania, which occupied $1800$ square feet and used $20,000$ vacuum tubes.

Bit

The basic unit of storage in a computer, short for binary digit, which can contain only the value $0$ or $1$.

Byte

A unit of data equivalent to $8$ bits.

Kilo Byte (KB)

A unit of data equivalent to $1024$ Bytes.

AND operation

A Boolean operation that produces an output of $1$ only when both inputs are $1$, otherwise it produces $0$.

XOR (Exclusive or)

A Boolean operation which produces an output of $1$ when both inputs are different and $0$ when both inputs are the same.

Hexadecimal Notation

A shorthand notation that uses a single symbol to represent a pattern of four bits, simplifying the representation of long bit streams.

Main Memory

A large collection of circuits, such as flip-flops, capable of storing individual bits organized into manageable units called cells.

RAM

Random access memory, where cells can be accessed independently in any order.

Seek Time

The time required to move the read/write heads of a magnetic disk system from one track to another.

Access Time

The sum of seek time and rotation delay in a disk storage system.

ASCII

$\text{American Standard Code for Information Interchange}$, which uses $7$ bits to represent $128$ unique characters.

Unicode

A coding system using unique patterns of $21$ bits to support thousands of characters from various languages like Chinese, Hebrew, and Japanese.

Pixel

Short for "Picture Element," it is a collection of dots used to encode images into bitmaps.

MIDI

$\text{Musical Instrument Digital Interface}$, a method that encodes directions for producing music rather than storing the music itself.

2’s Complement Notation

The most popular system for representing integers within today's computers, using a fixed number of bits and a sign bit.

Floating-Point Notation

A system for storing fractional numbers consisting of a sign bit, an exponent field, and a mantissa field.

Truncation Error

Also called round-off error, it occurs when part of a value is lost because the mantissa field is not large enough to store it.

Lossless Compression

Data compression schemes that do not lose information during the compression process, such as run-length encoding and Huffman codes.

Lossy Compression

Data compression schemes that may lead to the loss of information but provide higher compression ratios, often used for images and audio.

Arithmetic/Logic Unit (ALU)

The part of the CPU containing the circuitry that performs operations on data, such as addition and subtraction.

Registers

Data storage cells within the CPU used for temporary storage of information.

Bus

A collection of wires connecting the CPU and main memory for the purpose of transferring bit patterns.

Stored-program concept

The idea of storing a computer's program in its main memory, allowing the program to be changed without rewiring the CPU.

RISC

$\text{Reduced Instruction Set Computer}$, a CPU architecture philosophy focusing on a minimal set of efficient, fast instructions.

CISC

$\text{Complex Instruction Set Computer}$, a CPU architecture philosophy favoring a large number of complex instructions to handle software complexity.

Machine Cycle

The three-step process of Fetch, Decode, and Execute used by the CPU to perform instructions.

Pipelining

A technique to increase throughput by allowing the steps of the machine cycle to overlap for different instructions.

Batch Processing

The execution of jobs by collecting them in a single batch and executing them without further interaction with the user.

Kernel

The internal part of an operating system containing software components that perform basic functions like file and memory management.

Virtual Memory

A fictional memory space created by paging, allowing a computer to function as though it has more main memory than is physically present.

Deadlock

A condition in resource allocation where two or more processes are blocked because each is waiting for a resource allocated to another.

LAN

$\text{Local Area Network}$, which normally consists of a collection of computers in a single building or building complex.

Protocols

Established rules by which network activities are conducted.

IP Address

A unique identifying address assigned to each computer in the Internet system, written in dotted decimal notation.

DNS

$\text{Domain Name System}$, an Internet-wide directory system used to perform lookups and translate mnemonic names into IP addresses.

HTML

$\text{HyperText Markup Language}$, the markup language used for representing web pages.

TCP/IP Protocol Suite

The open collection of standards that governs communication throughout the Internet.

Software Life Cycle

The fundamental concept in software engineering representing the stages from requirements analysis and design to implementation, testing, and maintenance.

Coupling

The linkage between modules in a software system; designers aim to minimize this to maximize module independence.

Cohesion

The degree of relatedness of a module's internal parts; designers strive for high internal binding.

DBMS

$\text{Database Management System}$, software used to extract, store, retrieve, and modify data in a database in response to queries.

Data Mining

Techniques for discovering previously unknown patterns in collections of data, typically performed on static data warehouses.

Turing Test

A test proposed by Alan Turing to measure a machine's ability to behave intelligently by seeing if a human interrogator can distinguish it from a human.

Formula

A set of mathematical instructions used in Excel to perform calculations, always starting with an $=$ sign.

SQL

$\text{Structured Query Language}$, the most commonly used syntax for querying a relational database.