Repeats forever, as long as the
computer is switched on. The CPU
fetches one instruction from
memory, decodes the instruction to
understand what needs to be done,
and executes (carries out) the
instruction.
Clock Speed
Measures the number of FDE
cycles carried out every
second by the CPU
1 Hertz (1 Hz) = 1 cycle per second
1 Kilohertz (1 KHz) = 1'000 cycles per second
1 Megahertz (1 GMHz) = 1 million cycles per second
1 Gigahertz (1 GHz) = 1 billion cycles per second
Central Processing Unit - The brain of
the computer. Processes data and
instructions. Data and instructions
must be in memory for the CPU to
use.
Computers can only work with
numbers. These numbers must
be written in binary, using only
0's and 1's. All data (numbers,
text, images etc.) must become
binary numbers when it is
processed and stored in a
computer.
Bit = 1 single 0 or 1
1 Byte = 8 bits
One text character
1 Kilobyte (1 KB) = 1'000 bytes
A paragraph of text
1 Megabyte (1 MB) = 1'000 KB = 1 million bytes
A medium/large image
1 Gigabyte (1 GB) = 1'000 MB = 1 billion bytes
300 MP3 songs, 40 minutes high-quality video
1 Terabyte (1 TB) = 1'000 GB = 1 trillion bytes
The entire Encyclopaedia Britannica
Numbers
Binary is a different way to
represent numbers, using only
0's and 1's
All numbers can be represented
as a sequence of bits (0's and 1's)
Each bit has a weight based on its
position - this is called the place value
Place values start with 1 for the first bit ON
THE RIGHT, then double up for every bit we go
to the left. From right to left, place values are
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128..
Text
ASCII
American Standard Code for
Information Interchange - A code to
represent all characters as binary
numbers
ASCII code for 'A' is 01000001
ASCII code for 'B' is 01000010
ASCII code for '8' is 00111000 (not the same as the number eight