Key Definitions Flashcards
Define ‘Control Unit’
A component of the CPU
- Coordinates how data moves around a CPU
- Manages instructions
What is ‘Intermediate code’
Intermediate code is used to translate the source code into the machine code.
Define ‘Assembly language’
Assembly language is a programming language, almost exactly like the machine’s code, which the computer can understand, and can be used to directly tell the computer what to do.
What is ‘Hashing’
Is the transformation of a string of characters into a usually shorter value that represents the original string.
What is ‘Packet switching’
Is a method of grouping data transmitted over a digital network into packets.
What is a ‘Register’
A storage location on a procosser.
It can hold an instruction, a storage address, or any kind of data.
What is ‘Optical Storage’
An electronic storage medium that uses low power laser beams to record and retrieve digital binary data.
What is a ‘Device Driver’
Is a program that controls the operation of a specific type of device.
What is meant by the term ‘Machine Code’
An element language of computers. Read by the computer’s CPU. Composed of a sequence of digital binary numbers.
What is ‘Normalisation’
Analysing databases by using separate tables to reduce redundant data.
What does ‘ASCII’ stand for and what is it?
American Standard Code of Information Interchange
ASCII code allows computers to understand how to represent text as binary values.
What are ‘Busses’ (computer science)
Busses are the set of wires that transfer data from the processor to the main memory and peripherals.
What is the ‘Operating system’
Suite of programs that controls that computer hardware and software resources.
What are ‘compilers’?
A program that translates high-level programming into machine code.
What is ‘Lossy compression’?
Removes some of a file’s original data to reduce the file size.
