Notes for Computer Assignment 1

The Microprocessor:

-heart of any normal computer

-in charge of processing date

-Pentium, K6, PowerPC, and Spark are some of the different types of microprocessors

-also known as CPU

-a 'complete computation engine' made on a single chip ( a chip is a small thin piece of material called silicon which transistors are engraved)

-first microprocessor was Intel 4004 which wasn't powerful, but was only able to add or subtract in 4 bits at a time

-Intel 4004 powered first portable calculator

-microprocessor doesn't really understand what it's doing; it only does what it is instructed to do according to the program

-over the years microprocessors have improved in speed

-old microprocessors work like this:
-Program stored in hard disk drive is transported to RAM memory
-CPU loads program information from RAM memory
-Data in CPU is processed
-What happens after depends on program. CPU can continue loading, executing instructions
or do something with data

-modern computers can transfrer data from hard disk drive to RAM memory without using CPU, therefore the process is faster (this is called Direct Memory Access)