IT fundamentals

• Personal computer
• Hardware of a PC
• Memory
• CPU

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 Personal Computer
• A PC is a general purpose tool built around a
microprocessor.
• It has lots of different parts -- memory, a hard
disk, a modem, etc. -- that work together.
• General purpose" means that you can do many
different things with a PC. You can use it to
type documents, send e-mail, browse the
Internet and play games.

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 PC - continued
• A PC is a general-purpose information
processing device. It can take information
from a person (through the keyboard and
mouse), from a device (like a pendrive or CD)
or from the network (through a modem or a
network card) and process it. Once processed,
the information is shown to the user (on the
monitor), stored on a device (like a hard disk)
or sent somewhere else on the network (back
through the modem or network card). 3
The organisation of a computer

Memory

Input Output
Devices Devices

CPU

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 Main components of a typical
desktop computer
• Motherboard
• CPU
• RAM
• Video Card
• Power Supply
• Hard Drive (HDD) or Solid State Drive (SSD)
• (Optical Drive)

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 Logical Parts of Computers
• Memory
• CPU
• Peripherals

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 What is Memory?
• Memory is the electronic holding place for
instructions and data that your computer's
microprocessor can reach quickly. When your
computer is in normal operation, its memory
usually contains the main parts of the
operating system and some or all of the
application programs and related data that are
being used.

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 What is Memory?
• Memory is the best essential element of a
computer because computer can’t perform
simple tasks. Computer memory is of two
basic type – Primary memory / Volatile
memory and Secondary memory / non-volatile
memory. Random Access Memory (RAM) is
volatile memory and Read Only Memory
(ROM) is non-volatile memory.

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What is Memory?

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 Comments: Memory
• Memory Element: Flip Flop. State: 0 or 1.
• Change state: based on circuit at each TIME STEP.

• Memory is the functional unit of computer that stores

instructions and data.
• Memory is divided into fixed size units called cells,
currently 8 bits - called byte
• Each memory cell has an address. Note that k bits can
be used to address 2k memory cells/bytes.
• Memory & Storage (12:16)
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 Different Types of Memory
• RAM (random-access memory): This is the
same as main memory. When used by itself,
the term RAM refers to read and write
memory;. As soon as the power is turned off,
whatever data was in RAM is lost.
• ROM (read-only memory): Computers almost
always contain a small amount of read-only
memory that holds instructions for starting up
the computer. Unlike RAM, ROM cannot be
written to. 11
 Dynamic RAM
• Similar to a microprocessor, a memory chip is
an integrated circuit (IC) made of millions of
transistors and capacitors. In the most common
form of computer memory, dynamic random
access memory (DRAM).

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 The capacitor in a
dynamic RAM memory
cell is like a leaky
bucket.
It needs to be
refreshed periodically
or it will discharge to 0.
This refresh operation is where dynamic RAM
gets its name. Dynamic RAM has to be
dynamically refreshed all of the time or it
forgets what it is holding. The downside of all
of this refreshing is that it takes time and
slows down the memory.
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 Static RAM
• A particular type of RAM, Static Random Access Memory
(SRAM), is used primarily for cache. SRAM uses multiple
transistors, typically four to six, for each memory cell. It has
an external gate array that switches, or flip-flops, between two
states. This means that it does not have to be continually
refreshed like DRAM. Each cell will maintain its data as long
as it has power. Without the need for constant refreshing,
SRAM can operate extremely quickly. But the complexity of
each cell make it prohibitively expensive for use as standard
RAM.
• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/types-computer-memory-ram-
rom/
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 Different types of memory II.
• PROM (programmable read-only memory): A PROM is a
memory chip on which you can store a program. But once the
PROM has been used, you cannot wipe it clean and use it to
store something else. Like ROMs, PROMs are non-volatile.

• EPROM (erasable programmable read-only memory): An

EPROM is a special type of PROM that can be erased by
exposing it to ultraviolet light.

• EEPROM (electrically erasable programmable read-only

memory): An EEPROM is a special type of PROM that can be
erased by exposing it to an electrical charge.
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 Memories – past and today
• Different Kinds of Memory (5:53)

• How Do CPUs Use Multiple Cores? (5:59)

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 Further Memory comments
• All of the components in your computer, such
as the CPU, the hard drive and the operating
system, work together as a team, and memory
is one of the most essential parts of this team.
From the moment you turn your computer on
until the time you shut it down, your CPU is
constantly using memory. Let's take a look at a
typical scenario:

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 You turn the computer on
• The computer loads data from read-only memory (ROM) and
performs a power-on self-test (POST) to make sure all the
major components are functioning properly.

• As part of this test, the memory controller checks all of the

memory addresses with a quick read/write operation to ensure
that there are no errors in the memory chips. Read/write means
that data is written to a bit and then read from that bit.

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 Loading Operating System
• The computer loads the basic input/output system (BIOS) from
ROM. The BIOS provides the most basic information about
storage devices, boot sequence, security, Plug and Play (auto
device recognition) capability and a few other items.

• The computer loads the operating system (OS) from the hard
drive into the system's RAM. Generally, the critical parts of
the operating system are maintained in RAM as long as the
computer is on.

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 Loading Applications
• When you open an application, it is loaded into
RAM. To conserve RAM usage, many
applications load only the essential parts of the
program initially and then load other pieces as
needed.
• After an application is loaded, any files that
are opened for use in that application are
loaded into RAM.

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 The Process
• In the list above, every time something is
loaded or opened, it is placed into RAM. This
simply means that it has been put in the
computer's temporary storage area so that the
CPU can access that information more easily.
The CPU requests the data it needs from
RAM, processes it and writes new data back to
RAM in a continuous cycle.

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 The Process (cont.)
• In most computers, this moving of data
between the CPU and RAM happens millions
of times every second. When an application is
closed, it and any accompanying files are
usually deleted from RAM to make room for
new data.
If the changed files are not saved to a
permanent storage device before being purged,
they are lost.
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 CPU
• Abbreviation of Central Processing Unit.
The CPU(s) is (are) the brain(s) of the computer. Sometimes
referred to simply as the processor or central processor, the
CPU is where most calculations take place (Exception: where
there is a dedicated graphics card, and user is running e.g high
resolution games, or engineering softwares)
In terms of computing power, the CPU is the most important
element of a computer system.
• Computer runs a STORED program.
• This stored program can be arbitrary.
• The basic architecture we discuss is called
Neumann Architecture.
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 The Neumann Principles
1. Computer is processing data sequentially.
The machine carries out instructions one by one. Neumann thought, electric computers
could be fast enough without parallelism. However most of today’s computers are
sequential, there are multiprocessor computers able to perform multiple task in the
same time.

2. Computer uses binary quotation and it is fully electronic.

Binary quotation can be implemented with 2-state circuits (1-higher voltage, 0-lower
voltage) with the use of vacuum tubes, transistors, complex integrated circuits.

3. Computer has internal memory.

Neumann suggested using internal memory to store partial results in order to make
computer capable of carrying out a set of operations without any user interaction.
Nowadays we use semi-conductor memory containing integrated circuits.

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 The Neumann Principles
4. Stored program concept.
Instructions can be denoted with numbers, so they can treated as data and can
be stored in memory. In this way, computer can work on its own, it retreives
data and instructions from the memory. Naturally the data and the instructions
are located in different parts of the memory.

5. Computer is universal.
There is no need to make special devices, machines to perform different
computer tasks. Turing prooved with mathematical logical tools that a machine
capable to perform some elementary operations can carry out any kind of
calculations.

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 CPU

• CPU
• The Central Processing Unit (11:37)

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 Important Components of CPU:
• Control Unit --- brain of the CPU. It decides which
operations are to be performed and when.

• Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU): Consists of logical circuits for

doing addition, multiplication etc.

• Buses: The buses are wires which connect different parts of

the CPU and the parts of the CPU to other components of the
computer.

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• Instruction Execution:

• CPU repeatedly executes the instruction cycle.

1. Fetch the instruction from memory

2. Decode the instruction
3. Execute the instruction (including the setting up for the next instruction
to be executed)
(Control signals are used to select which operation is to be done.)

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 Types of Computers
• Supercomputers
• Mainframes
• Minicomputers
• Workstations
• Desktop computers
• Notebook computers (laptops)
• Netbooks
• Mobile tools (smart phones, tablets)
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Thank you for your attention!

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