Computer System Revision by George Parr

Computer Systems

George1012395 — 2014-10-22 09:20:39 UTC

A computer system is something that can input, output, store and process data. It also needs power.

Reliability

George1012395 — 2014-10-22 09:50:11 UTC

Computers need to be reliable otherwise things such as life or money could be lost. Life support could fail, and if a banks system break money could be lost. If computer systems in planes were not reliable, we would not have air travel as we know it.

Adherence to suitable professional standards

George1012395 — 2014-10-23 11:27:09 UTC

An example is a USB. It must be made the same, so the usability is between many systems.

Another is software running on windows. To work, they must be able to run with windows.

Ethical, environmental and legal considerations

George1012395 — 2014-10-23 11:29:16 UTC

Running a computer system uses electricity, which is often made with non environmental friendly power sources such as fossil fuels.

If data about someone is stored on a system, it is possible to hack it. This means there are legal issues with storing data, for instance in a school. There are also ethical issues with computers. When using a computer, it is so easy to copy other people's work, and they also raise questions about victimless crimes - i.e. are they worse than crimes with victims.

CPU.

George1012395 — 2014-10-23 11:35:27 UTC

The purpose of a CPU is to make calculations and to process data. It makes the decisions in the computer.

Fetch Execute Cycle

George1012395 — 2014-10-23 11:37:38 UTC

Firstly, the CPU fetches data and stores it in its registers. It then decodes this information. Finally, it acts upon the fetched data.

Changing Charateristics

George1012395 — 2014-10-24 13:48:05 UTC

Clock speed - if increased, the fetch, execute cycle will run quicker, and instructions will be processed quicker.

Cache Size - If made bigger, more data can be stored here. This means the system will run quicker as less data will have to be loaded from the RAM.

Number of Cores - The more cores in a CPU, the more instructions at once