Week 1
Week 1
Components and
Functions
a. System software: Software used to manage computer resources, for
example, the CPU, Memory, I/O devices, etc., fall under the category of
System Software. Examples are operating systems, editors, compilers, and
assemblers.
Computer Language:
In general, it’s quite difficult to write software programs in binary code. So,
software developers use a mnemonic-based language called the Assembly
Language. Assembly language enables writing the instruction in a simpler
form which is further converted into Machine Language using a special tool
called the Assembler.
History of Computers:
Charles Babbage invented the first computer. He was born in December 1791
and died aged 79 years in Oct 1871. He is well-known as a mathematician,
philosopher, engineer, and inventor. But most importantly, he is well-known as
the father of the computer. Here is the further generation-wise development of
computers.
The Little Computer 3 (LC-3) was developed jointly by Yale N. Patt at the
University of Texas at Austin and Sanjay J. Patel at the University of Illinois at
Urbana–Champaign. It includes the most important features of the well-known
computer systems available in the market. The instruction set of LC-3 has
only 15 instructions identified by unique codes. These represent the different
types of arithmetic, logic, and control operations that the LC-3 can perform.
● LC-3 Architecture:
The three important parts of LC-3 are memory, the Input and Output System,
and the Control and Processing Unit (CPU). The Processor Bus or the System
Bus connects the different parts, transferring information to and from each
component. Here, the CPU consists of the following key blocks:
To write and execute the program in LC-3, we do not require to purchase any
hardware-based LC-3 computer. A simulator called LC-3 simulator, is
available in Windows and Linux Machines, as well as a web version. Here,
every instruction stored in the LC-3 memory can be specified by:
1) Giving the value of that instruction and storing it in the correct memory
location.
3) Writing assembly code in the text editor and load to the simulator.
Measurement of Speed
The base unit for the measurement of speed is Hz. Hertz stands for clock
cycles per second, which is also a unit of frequency. So, when we measure
the speed of operation of any component in the computer system, we look at
the number of processing cycles the component can execute per second time.
Measurement of Storage
Measurement of Time
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