exam review chapter 1 review Flashcards
hardware
the phsyical equipment and devices that a computer is made of.
what are the 3 primary categories of hardware components?
CPU
Primary memory and secondary storage
Peripherals
software
the programs that run on the hardware
CPU
brain of the computer or processor which performs most of the computing.
what operations are performed by the CPU?
arithmetic
comparisons
logic
data movement
control flow
speed of a CPU
measured in GHz - billion hertz per second
secondary storage
long term (permanent storage) of a computer
secondary storage includes?
hard drives flash drives cds dvds magnetic tapes floppy disks
hard drives
include several magnetic disks which store information
secondary storage typically contains
operating system
programs
documents and other user data files
settings and preferences
primary memory
every computer requires some primary/ main memory to work properly
traditionally known as RAM (random access memory)
pretty much everything that is being done on the computer - executing, displaying, calculating
can the CPU access the secondary memory?
not directly. it copies the information from the secondary to the primary where it can be used
(secondary and primary)
opening something:
secondary memory (disk drive) -> primary meory (OS, RAM, etc)
(secondary and primary)
sharing something
primary memory (RAM, OS, etc.) -> primary memory (disk drive).
booting up
when the computer is turned on - primary memory is empty (blank)
computer runs a “boot loader” - this boot loader is stored on a separate chip (ROM - Read only memory)
the boot loader then copies the operating system from the secondary storage into primary memory so it can be run.
booting up (simplified)
Boot loader(stored on ROM) loads from Secondary Storage, loading into Primary memory.
CPU in easy to understand terms
A person’s brain (CPU) uses a desk (Primary memory) in order to work with his documents (Secondary storage).
examples of peripherals
- Monitor (display)
- Keyboard
- Mouse
- Touchpad
- Touch Screen
- Game Controller (e.g., XBOX / playstation)
- Printer
- Camera
- Speakers
- Microphone
- Fingerprint Scanner
peripherals that you don’t necessarily interact with
¥ Network cable (ethernet) connection ¥ WiFi ¥ 3G/Wireless/LTE ¥ GPS (Global Positioning System) ¥ Compass ¥ Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) ¥ Gyroscope/Motion/Gesture Sensor ¥ Battery Sensor
event based
your mouse
polling
camera
hardware convergence
when the hardware (computer chips) for several different hardware components are combined together into a single chip
(SoC) - system on chip
two types of software
application programs and system programs
apps - designed to interact with the users
system programs - designed to work in the background to operate the computer
data in an application includes:
text and multimedia
operating systems are primarily composed of three things
the kernel - manages all the resources
bundled applications - come with the operating system
the sell - user interface
what would be considered the heart of the operating system -
the kernel
what are the two man responsibilities of the kernel
managing resources
and responding to application requests
the reason dozens of programs that appear to be running at the same time.
because the kernel is constantly switching between different programs
application requests also include
Requesting more primary memory
Accessing files in secondary storage
Accessing websites and other networking tasks
Communication with other applications (e.g., sending messages)
