A broad understanding of architecture is the designing or design of any kind of system or structure with a strong concern for aesthetics. In computer science architecture refers to all levels of hardware design, as well as the integration of hardware and software components which form computer systems.
A digital computer typically consists of a control unit, an arithmetic-logic unit, a memory unit, and input/output units. The arithmetic-logic unit (ALU) performs simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and logic operations—such as OR and AND.
The main computer memory, usually high-speed random-access memory (RAM), stores instructions and data. The control unit fetches data and instructions from memory and effects the operations of the ALU.
The control unit and ALU usually are referred to as a processor, or central processing unit (CPU). The operational speed of the CPU primarily determines the speed of the computer as a whole. The basic operation of the CPU is analogous to a computation carried out by a person using an arithmetic calculator.
The control unit corresponds to the human brain and the memory to a notebook that stores the program, initial data, and intermediate and final computational results. In the case of an electronic computer, the CPU and fast memories are realized with transistor circuits.
I/O units, or devices, are commonly referred to as computer peripherals and consist of input units (such as keyboards and optical scanners) for feeding instructions and data into the computer and output units (such as printers and monitors) for displaying results.
In addition to RAM, a computer usually contains some slower, but larger and permanent, secondary memory storage. Almost all computers contain a magnetic storage device known as a hard disk, as well as a disk drive to read from or write to removable magnetic media known as floppy disks.
Various optical and magnetic-optical hybrid removable storage media are also quite common, such as CD-ROMs (compact disc, read-only memory) and DVD-ROMs (digital video [or versatile] disc read-only memory).
Computers also often contain a cache—a small, extremely fast (compared to RAM) memory unit that can be used to store information that will be urgently or frequently needed. Current research includes cache design and algorithms that can predict what data is likely to be needed next and preload it into the cache for improved performance.
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This is a very informational post. I liked the mentioning and the elaboration on each part of a digital computer. I have very little knowledge of the actually structures of computers so it's helpful to know about the 6 typical components they have.
ReplyDeleteThe parts and architecture that goes into the building and creation of a computer is astounding. Thanks for the information in this post. It really gives us a great idea about what is in each of these computers, monitors, and modems that we all use and take pride in. As consumers we understand the capabilities of computers, whether laptop or desktop, PC or Mac, but we may not fully understand the true capacity that it holds and what it is comprised of.
ReplyDeleteGood overview, but what about your source(s) of information? Where can we go to learn more?
ReplyDeleteApologies, I got my information from britannica.com
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