IT Essentials

Dr. Usama Tharwat

9 dr.usama_tharwat@yahoo.com
1st Year IT (2022-2026)I – LEC03-4
 PC COMPONENTS
• Motherboards

A motherboard is a printed circuit board (PCB) that

contains buses, or electrical pathways, which interconnect
electronic components.

These components may be soldered directly to the

motherboard or added using sockets, expansion slots, and
ports.

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1. Mouse & keyboard 2. USB
3. Parallel port 4. CPU Chip
5. RAM slots 6. Floppy controller

9 7. IDE controller 8. PCI slot 9. ISA slot

10. CMOS Battery 11. AGP slot 12. CPU slot
13. Power supply plug3 in
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 PC COMPONENTS
• Motherboards

Demo…

F:\NCTU\My Courses\IT essentials\My Slides\How

to make a Motherboard - A GIGABYTE Factory
Tour Video.mp4
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 PC COMPONENTS
• Motherboards

Demo…

F:\NCTU\My Courses\IT essentials\My Slides\How a

motherboard is made_ Inside the Gigabyte factory in
Taiwan (1).mp4
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 The Components of a Computer System
- Von Neumann architecture

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Von Neumann architecture

• 4 major subsystems called memory, input/output, the

arithmetic/ logic unit (ALU), and the control unit.

• The sequential execution of instructions, in which one

instruction at a time is fetched from memory and passed
to the control unit, where it is decoded and executed.

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Memory and Cache

• Memory is the functional unit of a computer that stores

and retrieves the instructions and the data being
executed.

• All information stored in memory is represented internally

using the binary numbering system.

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Memory and Cache

• Computer memory
uses an access
technique called
random access

RAM
ROM

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Memory and Cache

Random access memory (RAM):

 divided into fixed-size units called cells

 each cell is associated with address (0, 1, 2, . .. , MAX).

 The cell is the minimum unit of access.

 The time it takes to fetch or store the contents of a cell is the same
for all the cells in memory.

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Memory and Cache

Read-only memory (ROM):

 It is random access memory into which information has been

prerecorded during manufacture.

 This information cannot be modified or removed, only fetched.

 ROM is used to hold important system instructions and data in a

place where a user cannot accidentally or intentionally overwrite

9 them.

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Memory and Cache

 If there are N bits available to represent the address of a cell, then

the smallest address is 0 and the largest address is a string of N 1s:

1111 . . . 11

N digits
which is equal to the value 2N – 1.

 The range of addresses available on a computer is [0 . . (2N – 1)]

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Memory and Cache

• 210 = 1K ( = 1,024) 1 KB=1 kilobyte

• 220 = 1M( = 1,048,576) 1 MB= 1 megabyte
• 230 = 1G ( = 1,073,741,824) 1 GB = 1 gigabyte
• 240 = 1T ( = 1,099,511,627,776) 1 TB = 1 terabyte
• 250 = 1P ( = 1,125,899,906,842,624) 1 PB = 1 petabyte

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Memory and Cache

• Computers became faster, designers noticed that, more and more,

the processor was sitting idle waiting for data or instructions to
arrive. Processors were executing instructions so quickly that
memory access was becoming a bottleneck.

• To solve this problem, cache memory has being used

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Memory and Cache

• A cache is typically 5 to 10 times faster than RAM but much

smaller—on the order of a few megabytes rather than a few
gigabytes.

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Input / Output and Mass Storage

• The input/output (I/O) units are the devices that allow a computer
system to communicate and interact with the outside world as well
as store information.

• RAM is volatile memory

• Nonvolatile storage is the role of mass storage devices such as

floppy disks, flash memory, hard disks, CDs, DVDs.

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 The Components of a Computer System
- The Arithmetic/Logic Unit (ALU)

• It is the subsystem that performs such mathematical and logical

operations as addition, subtraction, and comparison for equality.

Note: in all modern machines the ALU and the control unit have
become fully integrated into a single component called the processor.

• The ALU is made up of three parts: the registers, the

9 interconnections between components, and the ALU circuitry.

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 The Components of a Computer System
- Control Unit

The task of the control unit is to:

 fetch from memory the next instruction to be executed,
 decode it—that is, determine what is to be done, and
 execute it by issuing the appropriate command to the ALU, memory,
or I/O controllers.

These three steps are repeated over and over until we reach the last
instruction in the program, typically something called HALT, STOP, or
QUIT.
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 System Software
• To make a Von Neumann computer usable, we must create an
interface between the user and the hardware.

9 • Such an interface does exist, and it is called system software.

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 System Software
• System software is a collection of computer programs that manage
the resources of a computer and facilitate access to those
resources.

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 System Software
• System software is a collection of computer programs that manage
the resources of a computer and facilitate access to those
resources.

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 System Software
• The system software has the following responsibilities:

 Hides the complex and unimportant (to the user) details of the
internal structure of the Von Neumann architecture.

 Presents important information to the user in a way that is easy to

understand.

 Allows the user to access machine resources in a simple and

efficient way

 Provides a secure and safe environment in which to operate.

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 Types of System Software
• System software is a collection of many different programs.
• The program that controls the overall operation of the computer is
the operating system, and it is the single most important piece of
system software on a computer.

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 Operating System
• An operating system (OS) interfaces between a user’s program
and the hardware and provides a variety of services and supervisory
functions.

• Among the most important functions are:

1. Handling basic input and output operations

2. Allocating storage and memory
3. Having the responsibilities of a security guard—controlling
access to the computer and its resources. OS prevents
unauthorized users from accessing the system and prevent
authorized users from doing unauthorized things.
4. Providing for protected sharing of the computer among multiple
9 applications using it simultaneously.

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 Operating System
• An operating system (OS) interfaces between a user’s program
and the hardware and provides a variety of services and supervisory
functions.

Examples of operating systems in use today are Linux, MacOS, and

Windows.

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 Compilers
• Compilers perform another vital function: the translation of a
program written in a high-level language, such as C, C++, Java, or
Visual Basic into instructions that the hardware can execute.

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 From a High-Level Language to the Language of Hardware

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 From a High-Level Language to the Language of Hardware

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 From a High-Level Language to the Language of Hardware

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 Thank You
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