Chapter 1 Flashcards
What is a computer?
It is an electronic device capable of performing commands such as input and output in terms of data, storage and performance of arithmetic and logical operations.
What are some major hardware components of a computer?
CPU(central processing unit), main memory(RAM), input/output devices and secondary storage.
What is the central processing unit?
It is the “brain” of the computer and most expensive piece of hardware in a computer.
What is the Random Access Memory?
Place where all programs must be loaded into RAM before they can become executed.
Secondary Storage what is it?
The driver that stores information permanently for a computer
What are input devices?
A device that feeds data and programs into a computer
What are output devices?
A device that the computer uses to display results
System programs
A program that controls the computer
Operating systems
Monitors the overall activity of the computer and provides services
Application programs
A software program that performs a specific task
Analog signals
A continuous wave form used to represent such things as sound
Digital signals
Represents information with a sequence of 0s and 1s
Machine language
The language of a computer; a sequence of 0s and 1s
Binary digit
The digit 0 or 1
Binary code
A sequence of 0s and 1s
Byte
A sequence of eight bits
Kilobyte
Abbreviated KB - 1024, or 210 bytes
American Standard Code for information interchange
American Standard Code for Information Interchange - the most commonly used encoding scheme for personal computers; the ASCII data set uses seven bits to represent 128 characters, numbered from 0 to 127
Assembler
A program that translates a program written in assembly language into an equivalent program in machine language.
High-level langauge
A programming language that is similar to natural speaking languages
Complier
A program that translates instructions written in a high-level language into the equivalent machine language.
Source code
A program written in high-level language.
Preprocessor
A program that processes statements in a C++ program that begin with the symbol #
Object program
The machine language version of the high-level language program.
Library
Includes prewritten code
Linker
A program that loads an executable program into main memory.
Build or rebuild
The command that does the linking on Visual C++ and Visual Studio
Algorithm
A step-by-step problem solving process in which a solution is arrived at in a finite amount of time.
What are the steps to analyzing a problem?
- Understand the algorithm thoroughly.
- Understand the problem requirements.
- If the problem is complex, divide the problem into subproblems and repeat Steps 1 and 2.
Structured design
The act of dividing a problem into smaller subproblems
Structured Programming
The process of implementing a structured design
