Comp. Sci - Unit 4 computers

von Neumann architecture

computer system designed in which the program is stored in memory with the data.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

Hardware device that carries out the processing in a computer

Random Access Memory (RAM)

a temporary store for data and instructions.

Read Only Memory (ROM)

Memory that cannot be altered and is not lost when the power is turned off

Cache Memory

used to make up for the difference in speed between two internal components

Arithmetic/logic unit

the part of the CPU that performs arithmetic computations and logical operations.

Control Unit

the part of the CPU that organizes the actions of the other parts of the CPU

The Address Bus

carries memory addresses between the CPU and the memory to identify uniquely a memory location.

The Data bus

carries the value to be read from or written to memory.

The Control Bus

carries signals to coordinate all the computer activities.

Secondary Storage

any kind of permanent storage to which the contents of ROM/RAM are copied.

Magnetic storage

Secondary storage that works by magnetising parts of a substance as north and south poles to represent binary 1s and 0s

Optical storage

Secondary storage that works using differences in light reflection from a material

Solid State Storage

Secondary storage that works by storing charge (electrons)

Cloud storage

secondary storage that is accessed via a network, usually the internet.

Software

the set of programs run by a computer.

Application Software

software program that performs a task that would otherwise be done by hand

Operating system

software designed for particular hardware and which manages other programs' access to the hardware.

Utility Software

provides additional functionality to the operating system

Low level programming language

a P.L that is closely related to the CPU's machine code.

High level programming language

for these programs to run on the CPU, the source code has to be translated into machne code.