Term
| What device acted as the first switches in the earliest computers? |
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Definition
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Term
| What device acts as switches in today's computers? |
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Definition
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Term
| Give two advantages of the transistors over vacuum tubes. |
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Definition
- can be switched on and off easily
- smaller |
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Term
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Definition
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Term
| Why are binary numbers used in our digital computers? |
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Definition
| computers understand only two states of existence: on and off (one and zero) |
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Term
| How do you write binary number 11011? |
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Definition
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Term
| Name the four steps of the machine cycle |
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Definition
| Fetch, Decode, Execute, Store |
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Term
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Definition
| control unit, information sources, capacities, cache memory |
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Term
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Definition
| (interpret) control unit, instruction set, assembly language |
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Term
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Definition
| (Do the task), math, logic |
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Term
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Definition
| (Write back) computation results, locations changeable |
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Term
| What is typical clock speed of today's CPU's? |
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Definition
| 3 GHz (3 billion clock ticks per second) |
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Term
| How does Cache memory work? |
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Definition
| a memory block that holds recent and frequently used intructions or data that the CPU uses the most |
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Term
| What is the purpose of a data bus in a computer? |
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Definition
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Term
| Name the two aspects of a bus that affect how fast data can be transferred. |
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Definition
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Term
| Why is pipelining faster than traditional processing by a CPU? |
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Definition
| it allows the computer to do multiple tasks at once |
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Term
| When is ROM commonly used? |
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Definition
| start up instructions or computer needs |
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Term
| Whats the difference between ROM and RAM? |
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Definition
| ROM is read only for example instructional manuals and such (doesnt change) RAM is the thinking memory of the computer (cant be changed) |
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Term
| What is parallel processing? |
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Definition
| large network of computers, with each computer working on a multiple tasks at a time |
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Term
| Whats the difference between Cache and RAM? |
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Definition
| Chache holds copies of data and instructions used frequently and RAM is the place that holds all the originals and the rest of the information |
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