4.6: section 4: hardware and software Flashcards
what `is hardware
-the physical electrical and electro-mechanical components of a computer system
what is software, name the 2 types
- the programs that make a computer function
- system and application
what is system software, name the 4 types
- software needed to operates, controls and maintain the computer’s hardware and application programs
- operating systems, utility programs, libraries, translators
what is the operating system
3 points
- a program or set of programs that manage the operations of the computer for the user
- manages and controls access to the computer’s resources.
- Acts as an interface between the user and the computer’s hardware
- uses a virtual machine to hide the true complexity of the computer from the user
- OS is held in permanent storage – e.g. on a hard disk
what is utility software
-designed to carry out housekeeping tasks
-tasks include data backup, defragmenting hard drives (reorganising data on a hard drive in
order to improve speed of access), data compression and encryption.
what are libraries
- collection of precompiled routines written to carry out common tasks for other programs
- libraries must be imported into program code in order to be used
what are translators, name the 3 types
- software used to translate high level programming code into machine code
- complier, assembler, interpreter
what are low level programming languages, name 2 types
- machine-oriented languages which have no built-in functions but can access specific registers in the processor.
- machine code, assembly language
what are high level programming languages, name 1 types
- abstracted problem-oriented languages which need to be translated to be understood by computers
- imperative
what is machine code, name 2 parts
- a programming language made of binary or hexadecimal instructions which a computer can respond to directly.
- Opcode (operation code)- the actual instruction
- all the instructions that a computer can understand and execute.
-Operand- the value that the instruction uses or manipulates.
what is assembly language
- a low-level symbolic code converted by an assembler.
- Each opcode is replaced with mnemonic- made it easier to understand what the operator meant
- The operand was replaced by a decimal (hexadecimal) number
what are the advantages of machine code
3 points
- fast as they don’t need to be translated
- memory efficient
- can directly communicate with hardware devices
what are disadvantage of machine code
3 points
not portable
- difficult to debug and maintain as it is more error prone
- difficult for humans to understand
what are imperative languages
- designed to solve specific problem types by writing a set of instructions that say how a problem should be solved
- the instructions are then translated from high-level source code into executable object code.
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what are advantage of high level programming
- relatively easy to learn
- easier and faster to write compared to low level languages
- easier to understand, debug and maintain as code uses english
- machine independent so its portable
- many available built in functions
