1.

Optical Disk- optical disc drive (ODD) is any storage media that holds content in digital
format and is read using a laser assembly is considered optical media.

2. Utility Programs- a computer program intended for a particular task; usually pertaining
to system resource management like Microsofts Disk Cleanup utility.


3. Interpreter- takes the script or program code and modifies it in such a way that it can be
understood and the executed by the computer.

4. Spreadsheet Software- a data file made up of rows and columns that are used to sort
data and allow a user to manipulate and arrange data easily, commonly numerical data. It
has the ability to calculate values using mathematical formulas and the data in the cells.


5. Presentation graphic- any graphic used during a presentation that is used in place of
complicated data.

6. ABC Computer- Atanasoff-Berry Computer is considered the first electronic digital
computer, and was the first machine to use vacuum tubes.


7. Mark I- A programmable, electromechanical calculator designed by Professor Howard
Aiken. Built by IBM and installed at Harvard in 1944, it strung 78 adding machines
together to perform three calculations per second.

8. EDVAC- (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) is one of the first
electronic computers that utilized the binary system that first began performing basic
tasks in 1951.


9. ASCII- (American Standard Code for Information Interexchange) is an industry
standard, which assigns letters, numbers, and other characters within the 256 slots
available in the 8-bit code.

10. GUI- (Graphical User Interface) was first developed at Xerox PARC by Alan
Kay, Douglas Engelbart, and a group of other researchers in 1981.

11. AI- (Artificial Intelligence) a term coined by John McCarthy in1955 at Dartmouth
College. The basic purpose of AI is to develop a computer or program to simulate a
human or have the capability of learning.

12. ENIAC- (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was invented by J. Presper
Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction
in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. While not completed until the end of the
World War II, the ENIAC was created to help with the war efforts against German
forces.

13. UNIVAC- (Universal Automatic Computer) trademark of the Unisyscorporation, was
released in 1951 and 1952 when first developed by J. Presper Eckertand John Mauchly.
The UNIVAC is an electrical computer containing thousands of vacuum tubes that
utilizes punch cards and switches for inputting data and punch cards for outputting and
storing data.

14. WYSIWG- (What You See Is What You Get) a term coined by Charles Simonyi
in 1974 to describe an application able to display a file or document exactly as it will
appear when printed or viewed.


15. WWW- (World Wide Web) a graphical interface for the Internet that was first introduced
to the public on August 6,1991 by Tim Berners-Lee. The world wide web consists of
billions of pages linked to each other that contain text, graphics, multimedia files, and
other interactive software.

16. Operating System- a software program that enables the computer hardware to
communicate and operate with the computer software. Without a computer operating
system, a computer and software programs would be useless.


17. Compiler- The first compiler was developed by Grace Hopper while working on the
Harvard Mark I computer. Today, most high-level languages will include their own
compiler or have toolkits available that can be used to compile the program.

18. Word processing- decribes the process of manipulating or creating a text document
using a Word processor.


19. Open Source- Term used to describe a program or file that can be freely modified by
anyone, allowing users to make the program perform the way he, she or their company or
organization needs it to operate or perform.

20. Microcomputer- Term used to describe a standard personal computer. It is slower than
other high performing computers such as a server or a mainframe.





















1. Computer- it is a term that was originally given to humans who performed numerical
calculations using mechanical calculators such as the abacus and slide rule. The term was
later given to a mechanical device as they began replacing the human computers. Today's
computers are electronic devices that accept data (input), process that data,
produces output, and then store (storage) the results.

2. Hardware is the tangible parts of a computer system. It refers to the physical
components of a computer that you can actually touch. Software is the non-tangible part
that tells the computer how to do its job. It is a set of instruction used to direct the
hardware on how to turn the data into useful information for people to use.

3. Keyboards, mouse, image scanner, external webcam, and microphone.

4. Printer, headphones, monitor, projector and speaker.
5. CPUs are known by several different names, including Central Processing Unit,
Processor and Microprocessors. These CPUs process data depending on the program that
you are currently using, however it doesn't make a difference for the CPU as various
compilers and translators following instructions declared by the programmer.


In the past the CPU would handle data moving from the hard drive to the RAM, however in
recent years CPU speeds have far exceeded the speeds of hard drives and would slow today's
systems down exponentially. Direct Memory Access is now used to allow the transfer of data
without a CPU.


Older processors on AMDs 754, 939 and 940 sockets have an embedded memory controller
which allows the CPU to directly access the RAM, bypassing the north bridge chip.


CPU Clocks
The clock signal is a binary signal, meaning that it is either high or low, 1 or 0, on or off.



A Clock Signal

All things a computer can do is measured in clock signals. This is prevalent in CAS Latency,
where the Latency of the RAM often dictates the responsiveness of said RAM. For example
CAS9 would take 9 clock cycles in order to being retrieving data, if the CAS latency of RAM is
too high a computer might start to fall behind in terms of responsiveness.


CPUs construct tables in order to know what instruction is next to be executed therefore the CPU
will not be waiting for an instruction for an increased length of time as the current instruction
may take several cycles in order to complete, allowing the CPU to execute multiple instructions
at the same time, however only completing one instruction at a time. Modern CPUs have
superscalar architecture, allowing them to execute multiple instruction at a time due to the
several execution units working in parallel.


Many questions arise when Intel and AMD are compared, however they both perform to the
same degree with varying clock speeds, IPC (Instructions Per Clock) and the amount of cores.
Processor "X" may take 7 cycles in order to complete and instruction, however processor "Y"
may take 9 cycles in order to complete the same instruction. However Processor "Y" may have
more cores than processor "X", meaning that the amount of cycles needed to complete the given
instruction is essentially the same as processor "Y" but it less efficient and makes up for this
inefficiency by having more physical cores in order to complete the instruction.

Block Diagram of a CPU

Above is a basic block diagram which should allow you to grasp the first things to know when it
comes to CPU architecture. AMD and Intel CPUs will differ from this slightly, however both use
a similar idea as to what you can see above. The RAM is not part of the CPU, however plays a
key role and the diagram could not be complete without it. Everything below the RAM is located
within the CPU itself, more accurately the internal clock and depending on the parts used the
clock speed can either be higher or lower than initially intended.


Memory Cache
Memory cache or static memory is much faster that RAM, also known as dynamic memory.
Despite being a lot faster than dynamic memory is more expensive, bigger and consumes more
power but it can work at the same speed as the clock, making it invaluable as dynamic memory
is much slower which could lead to lower overall performance.
Memory cache allows the CPU to work within itself and not have to fetch data from the RAM,
meaning that the cache is a type of frequently used memory. Programs are very sequential and
often have the next load of data in the position below the one that the CPU is currently working
with due to the memory controller on the CPU itself and can be accessed by the CPUs internal
clock rate.


Processing Instructions
The fetch unit retrieves the instructions from either the cache or the RAM and looks if the
instruction required is in the L1 cache, if not it is stored in the L2 cache and if not it is loaded
from the RAM.


When a PC powers on the caches are empty, however when an OS is loaded the caches soon start
to fill up. These instructions are quickly executed by the CPU starting from the hard drive, then
to the RAM and finally the internal cache. When the fetch unit retrieves the instruction the
instruction is sent to the decode unit for decoding and execution.


The role of the decode unit is to figure out what the CPU should do with the given instruction.
The ROM that exists inside the CPU has a set of code known as microcode which allows the
decode unit to decode the instruction in a way that the CPU can use it. After the instruction is
decoded it will be sent to the execute unit where the decoded instruction will be executed. On
modern CPUs there are many execution units as mentioned previously.


While modern CPUs have multiple execution units they are often assigned to do individual tasks.
An example of which is the FPU or Floating Point Unit and executes complex mathematical
instructions such as encoding numbers with various floating points with a fixed number of
significant digits. With all of these execution units there must be something to ensure the
instructions are sent to the correct execution unit, this is the role of the dispatch or schedule unit.

For a long time CPUs have had a feature known as "pipeline" which allows the CPU to work
with several different instructions at various stages, allowing for more than one instruction to be
reading for decoding and execution at a time, decreasing the waiting period while an instruction
is being decoded.


The Jasp Toolkit
The JASP Toolkit allows you to gain an understanding of a CPU with a more visual
representation and can be very useful to a beginner looking to understand the inner workings of a
CPU.

6. Alternatively referred to as main memory, primary memory, or system
memory,Random Access Memory (RAM) is a computer storage location that allows
information to be stored and accessed quickly from random locations within DRAM on
a memory module. Because information is accessed randomly instead of sequentially like
a CD or hard drive the computer can access the data much faster than it would if it was
only reading the hard drive. However, unlike ROM and the hard drive RAM is avolatile
memory and requires power in order to keep the data accessible, if power is lost all data
contained in memory lost. Short for Read-Only Memory, ROM is a type of "built-in"
memory that is capable of holding data and having that data read from the chip, but not
written to. Unlike Random Access Memory (RAM), ROM is non-volatile which means it
keeps its contents regardless if it has power or not.

7. Primary and Secondary memory
8. Antivirus (AVG)
Audio / Music program (iTunes)
Database (Access)
Device drivers
E-mail (Outlook)
Game (World of Warcraft)
Internet browser (Firefox)
Movie player (VLC)
Operating system (Windows XP)
Photo / Graphics program (CorelDRAW)
Presentation (PowerPoint)
Programming language (Perl)
Simulation (Flight simulator)
Spreadsheet (Excel)
Utility (Compression, Disk Cleanup, Encryption, Registry cleaner, Screensaver)
Word processor (Word)

9. Some software applications are installed with an operating system installation and either
depend on the operating system to function properly or help the operating system
function properly. These kinds of applications are sometimes called system
software because they are installed and, in a way, part of the operating system.
Application software is a set of one or more programs designed to carry out operations
for a specific application. Application software cannot run on itself but it is dependent on
system software to execute. For example: MS Word, MS Excel, Tally software, Library
management system, billing system, etc.