MEMORY

Question 1

What is ROM?

Answer 1

A small peice of read only memory loacted on the back of the motherboard.

It is non volatile and contains the very first instructions for the computer aka Bootstrap

Question 2

What is RAM?

Answer 2

Temporary storage of instructions and data that holds info being executed by the processor.

It is volatile (only retains data if computer is on) and is much faster than the hard disk yet less storage

Question 3

What are the 4 important internal parts of a computer system?

Answer 3

ROM
RAM
CPU
Hard Drive

Question 4

How does a computer first start up?

Answer 4

There is no instructions in the CPU yet so it needs to start up the operating system. This can be a problem as the operating system is in the hard drive and the CPU doesnt know it exists yet, so ROM uses its boostrap to start it up and wake up the other components.

Now the computer is aware of the componens it can boo up the operating system via RAM and hard drive

Question 5

What is virtual memory?

Answer 5

Virtual memory is needed when there is not enough physical RAM to store open programs. Programs are transfered from RAM to virtual memory (hard disk) when not being used then transfered back to RAM when needed.

Question 6

What is flash memory?

Answer 6

A long-life, non-volitile storage chip (memory stick)