Basic Organization of A Computer
Basic Organization of A Computer
Basic Organization of A Computer
The Internal Architectural Design of Computers Differs From One System Model to Another. However, the Basic Organization Remains the Same for All Computer Systems.
BASIC ARCHITECTURE
Input Unit
Data and instructions must enter the computer system before any computation can be performed on the supplied data. This task is performed by the input unit that links the external environment with the computer system.
Output Unit
The job of an output unit is just the reverse of that of an input unit. It supplies information and results of computation to the outside world.
The Following Functions Are Performed by an Output Unit: It accepts the results produced by the computer, which are in coded form and hence cannot be easily understood by us. It converts these coded results to human acceptable (readable) form. It supplies the converted results to the outside world.
Storage Unit
The data and instructions that are entered into the computer system through input units have to be stored inside the computer before the actual processing starts. Similarly, the results produced by the computer after processing must also be kept somewhere inside the computer system before being passed on to the output units.
The Specific Functions of the Storage Unit Are to Hold (Store): All the data to be processed and the instructions required for processing (received from input devices). Intermediate results of processing. Final results of processing before these results are released to an output device.
The type and number of arithmetic and logical operations that a computer can perform is determined by the engineering design of the ALU. However, almost ALU'S are designed to perform the four basic arithmetic, add, subtract, multiply, divide and logic operations or comparisons such as less than, equal to or greater than
Control Unit
How does the input device know that it is time for it to feed data into the storage unit? How does the ALU know what should be done with the data once they are received? And how is it that only the final results are sent to the output device and not the intermediate results?
The control unit acts as a central nervous system for the other components of the computer. It manages and coordinates the entire computer system. It obtains instructions from the program stored in main memory, interprets the instructions, and issues signals that cause other units of the system to execute them.