History/Hardware Flashcards
What were the Harvard computers?
Team of women who processed astronomical data.
When did the Agricultural age start?
12 000 years ago
When did the Industrial age start?
1700’s
What was the pivotal product of the Agricultural age?
The engine
What was the pivotal product of the Industrial age?
Electronics
When did the Information age start?
1990’s
What was the pivotal product of the Information age?
Knowledge
Who was the inventor of the Difference Engine? (1822)
Charles Babbage
What was the first general purpose programmable computer?
Analytical Engine, 1837
Who was the first programmer?
Ada Lovelace (Augusta Ada King)
What was the first published computer program?
Note G
Is an abacus a computer?
NO
Why did humans invent computers?
Humans seek to minimize costs while maximizing benefits.
What is Moore’s Law?
We can expect the speed and capability of computers to increase every couple of years/ number of transistors to double
When is Moore’s Law estimated to end?
2025
What did Joseph Marie Jacquard invent? (1804)
The Jacquard Loom
What was the Jacquard Loom an inspiration for and why?
The Analytical Engine, by using punched cards to program.
What was the WWII German cipher machine?
Enigma
Who cracked the German code in WWII?
Alan Turing
What machine was invented to decipher Enigma?
Colossus
What drove the miniaturization of computers in the ’50s-‘60s?
Space Race
When did home computing begin?
1980’s
What is Firmware?
Software embedded into a computer’s hardware.
What does CPU stand for?
Central Processing Unit
What does the CPU do?
Executes the instructions in a computer program.
Registers (CPU)
Hold the current state/value/data
Control Unit (CPU)
Decides what to do next, moves code/data around the CPU.
ALU (CPU)
Arithmetic Logic Unit - Performs integer and logical operations.
MMU (CPU)
Memory Management Unit - Manages the data flow between RAM and CPU
Cache (CPU)
Super fast memory on-board the CPU.
Clock (CPU)
Produces the timing signal in the CPU.
What is the CPU instruction cycle?
1) Fetch
2) Decode
3) Execute
Fetch (CPU)
CPU gets instruction from main memory and holds it in the form of a number.
Decode (CPU)
Interprets the instruction that was fetched and generates an electronic signal.
Execute (CPU)
The CPU routes the signal to the appropriate component for operation.
What determines a CPU speed?
Clock Rate
Integer Range
How much information can be processed at one time.
Hyperthreading
Provides a single core CPU with multiple instruction streams. So when one execution stream stalls the other continues.
What is volatile memory?
Forgotten when turned off.
DRAM
Dynamic Ram, must be refreshed to hold its value.
SRAM
Static Ram, holds value so long as current flows through circuit.
Which is slower, DRAM or SRAM?
DRAM
DIMM
Dual Inline Memory Modules
What does cache memory allow?
Quicker access to memory.
Why is it that 2 cores doesn’t equal twice the speed?
More cores means more time spent managing communications between them.
What is a motherboard?
Printed circuit board that connects everything together.
The bigger the cache, the ______. (speed)
Slower
What are the 4 most common types of Non-Volatile memory storage?
1) Paper
2) Magnetic
3) Optical
4) Semiconductor
What type of storage is a Hard Disk Drive? (HDD)
Magnetic
What keeps the arm on an HDD from touching the surface of the drive?
Aerodynamics
How does optical memory work?
Lasers encode and decode data.
What are two positives of optical memory?
Cheap and long lasting.
What type of memory are Solid State Drives an example of?
Semiconductor, Flash
What is it called when a user and a computer take turns inputting and outputting data?
Synchronous
What does it mean for I/O to be asynchronous?
The user is able to input data at anytime and the computer is able to output information independent of each other.
What is buses short for?
Omnibuses
What are buses?
Circuitry that allows numerous devices to be connected to a computer.
Where do you find buses?
Typically the motherboard
What is the most common peripheral connector?
USB
What is the IEC prefix for a billion?
Gibi
What two things does IEC combine?
Metric and Binary
IEC prefix for 1000?
Kibi
IEC prefix for a million?
Mebi
Which is smaller, DRAM or SRAM?
DRAM
Commercial computing began to increase the size of what?
Memory Capacity
