Computing Flashcards
What is hardware?
Physical components that make up a computer system
What is software?
Programs or applications that a computer system runs
What is an embedded system?
A computer which is designed to perform 1 specific task
What are the advantages of an embedded system?
- Easier to design
- Cheaper to produce
- More efficient at their task
What does the processing power of the CPU depend on?
- Clock speed
- Number of cores
- Cache size
What does the CPU do?
Manages the fetch, decode, execute cycle. Also controls the flow of data inside the CPU
What does the ALU do?
Performs arithmetic and logical operations
What does cache do?
A very fast memory that temporarily stores data and instructions that the processor is likely to reuse
What does the program counter do?
Holds memory address of next instruction for each cycle
What does the accumulator do?
Stores results of calculations from the ALU
What does the MAR do?
Holds any memory address about to be used by the CPU
What does MDR do?
Holds the actual data or instruction, which is either fetched from memory or waiting to be written to memory
What is volatile memory?
Memory that requires power to retain its data
What does RAM do?
Holds data and instructions which are currently being used
What does ROM do?
Contains instructions a computer needs to properly boot up.
The instructions are known as BIOS (Basic Input Output System)
