LESSON ONE

Introduction to computer hardware

1.1 What is computer hardware?

A simple analogy of hardware might be as follows: If any part of a computer
system clatters on the floor when dropped, it's hardware. If it doesn't, it's
software. This is a good working definition, but it's incomplete because it
implies that hardware and software are unrelated entities. It is to be noted
that software and hardware are often intimately related. Moreover, the
operation of much of today's hardware is controlled by firmware (software
embedded in the structure of the hardware).

A computer's hardware includes all the physical components that make up

the computer system. Hardware means all the parts of the computer that are
not software. It includes the processor, its memory, the buses that connect
devices together, and the peripherals.

1.2 Relationships among Hardware, Software, Architecture, and Organization.

Architecture describes the internal organization of a computer in an abstract way;

that is, it defines the capabilities of the computer and its programming model. You
can have range from the CPU to the memory and input/output devices. The
programs that control the operation of the computer are its software. When a
program is inside a computer its physical existence lies in the state of electronic
switches, the magnetization of tiny particles on magnetic disk, or bumps on the
surface of a CD or DVD. We can't point to a program in a computer any more than
we can point to a thought in the brain.

Two terms closely related to hardware are architecture and organization. A

computer's architecture is an abstract view of the computer, which describes what
it can do. A computer's architecture is the assembly language programmer's view
of the machine. You could say that architecture has a similar meaning to
functional specification.

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The architecture is an abstraction of the computer. A computer's organization
describes how the architecture is implemented; that is, it defines the hardware
used to implement the architecture.

1.2.1 An Example to distinguish between Architecture and Organization

Let's look at a simple example that distinguishes between architecture and
organization. A computer with a 32-bit architecture performs operations on numbers
that are 32 bits wide. You could build two versions of this computer. One is a high-
performance device that adds two 32-bit numbers in a single operation. The other is
a low-cost processor that gets a 32-bit number by bringing two 16-bit numbers from
memory one after the other. Both computers end up with the same result, but one
takes longer to get there. They have the same architecture but different
organizations.

HARDWARE, ARCHITECTURE, AND ORGANIZATION

Hardware means all the parts of the computer that are not software. It includes the processor, its
memory, the buses that connect devices together, and the peripherals.
Architecture describes the internal organization of a computer in an abstract way; that is, it defines
the capabilities of the computer and its programming model. You can have two computers that have
been constructed in different ways with different technologies but with the same architecture.
Organization describes how a computer is implemented. Organization is concerned with a
computer's functional components and their interrelationship. Organization is about buses, timing,
and circuits.

1.3 The digital computer

A computer is a machine that takes in information from the outside world, processes
it according to some predetermined set of operations, and delivers the processed
information. This definition of a computer is remarkably unhelpful, because it
attempts to define the word computer in terms of the equally complex words
information, operation, and process. Perhaps a better approach is to provide
examples of what computers do by looking at the role of computers in data
processing, numerical computation (popularly called number crunching),
workstations, automatic control systems, and electronic systems.

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1.3.1 The PC and workstation

The 1980s witnessed two significant changes in computing— the introduction of the PC and
the workstation. PCs bring computing power to people in offices and in their own homes.
Although primitive PCs have been around since the mid 1970s, the IBM PC and Apple
Macintosh transformed the PC from an enthusiast's toy into a useful tool. Software such as
word processors, databases, and spreadsheets revolutionized the office environment, just
as computer-aided design packages revolutionized the industrial design environment.
Today's engineer can design a circuit and simulate its behavior using one software package
and then create a layout for a printed circuit board (PCB) with another package. Indeed, the
output from the PCB design package may be suitable for feeding directly into the machine
that actually makes the PCBs.
When powerful personal computers are coupled to laser printers, anyone can use desktop
publishing packages capable of creating manuscripts that were once the province of the
professional publisher. Now, all that's taken for granted. Today's PCs can take video from
your camcorder, edit it, add special effects, and then burn it to a DVD that can be played on
any home entertainment system. Although everyone is familiar with the PC, the concept of
the workstation is less widely understood.
A workstation can be best thought of as a high-performance PC that employs state-of-the-
art technology and is normally used in industry. Workstations have been produced by
manufacturers such as Apollo, Sun, HP, Digital, Silicon Graphics, and Xerox. They share many
of the characteristics of PCs and are used by engineers or designers. The biggest difference
between workstations and PCs was in graphics and displays. This difference has all but
vanished with the introduction of high-speed graphics cards and large LCD displays into the
PC world.

1.3.2 The computer as a data processor

The early years of computing were dominated by the mainframe, which was largely used as
a data processor. Figure 1.1 describes a computer designed to deal with the payroll of a
large factory. We will call the whole thing a computer, in contrast with those who would say
that the CPU (central processing unit) is the computer and all the other devices are
peripherals. Inside the computer's immediate access memory is a program, a collection of
primitive machine-code.

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Operations, whose purpose is to calculate an employee's pay based on the number of hours
worked, the basic rate of pay, and the overtime rate. Of course, this program would also
deal with tax and any other deductions. Because the computer's immediate access memory
is relatively expensive, only enough is provided to hold the program and the data it is
currently processing. The mass of information on the employees is normally held in
secondary store as a disk file. Whenever the CPU requires information about a particular
employee, the appropriate data is copied from the disk and placed in the immediate access
store. The time taken to perform this operation is a small fraction of a second but is many
times slower than reading from the immediate access store. However, the cost of storing
information on disk is very low indeed and this compensates for its relative slowness. The
tape transport stores data more cheaply than the disk (tape is called tertiary storage). Data
on the disks is copied onto tape periodically and the tapes stored in the basement for
security reasons.

Every so often the system is said to crash and everything grinds to a halt. The last tape
dump can be reloaded and the system assumes the state it was in a short time before the
crash. Incidentally, the term crash had the original meaning of a failure resulting from a
read/write head in a disk drive crashing into the rotating surface of a disk and physically
damaging the magnetic coating on its surface. The terminals (i.e. keyboard and display)
allow operators to enter data directly into the system. This information could be the
number of hours an employee has worked in the current week. The keyboard can be used
to modify the program itself so that new facilities may be added as the system grows.
Computers found in data processing are often characterized by their large secondary stores
and their extensive use of printers and terminals.

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1.3.3 The computer as a numeric processor

Numeric processing or number crunching refers to computer applications involving a very

large volume of mathematical operations—sometimes billions of operations per job.
Computers used in numeric processing applications are frequently characterized by
powerful and very expensive CPUs, very high-speed memories, and relatively modest
quantities of input/output devices and secondary storage. Some supercomputers are
constructed from large arrays of microprocessors operating in parallel. Most of the
applications of numeric processing are best described as scientific. For example, consider
the application of computers to the modeling of the processes governing the weather. The
atmosphere is a continuous, three-dimensional medium composed of molecules of different
gases. The scientist can't easily deal with a continuous medium, but can make the problem
more tractable by considering the atmosphere to be composed of a very large number of
cubes. Each of these cubes is considered to have a uniform temperature, density, and
pressure.
Supercomputers are also used by the security services to crack codes and to monitor
telecommunications traffic for certain words and phrases.

1.3.4 The computer in automatic control

The majority of computers are found neither in data processing nor in numeric processing
activities. The advent of the microprocessor put the computer at the heart of many
automatic control systems. When used as a control element, the computer is embedded in
a larger system and is invisible to the observer. By invisible we mean that you may not be
aware of the existence of the computer. Consider a computer in a pump in a gas station
that receives cash in a slot and delivers a measured amount of fuel. The user doesn't care
whether the pump is controlled by a microprocessor or by a clockwork mechanism, as long
as it functions correctly.

A good example of a computer in automatic control is an aircraft's automatic landing

system. The aircraft's position and speed are determined by radio techniques in conjunction
with a ground-based instrument-landing system. Information about the aircraft's position is
fed to the three computers, which, individually, determine the error in the aircraft's course.
The error is the difference between the aircraft's measured position and the position it
should be in. The output from the computer is the signals required to move the aircraft's
control surfaces (ailerons, elevator, and rudder) and adjust the engine's thrust. In this case
the computer's program is held in ROM, a memory that can be read from but not written to.
Once the program to land the aircraft has been developed, it requires only occasional
modification. The automatic-landing system requires three computers, each working on the
same calculation with the same inputs. The outputs of the computers are fed to a majority
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logic circuit called a voting network. If all three inputs to the majority logic circuit are the
same, its output is identical to its inputs. If one computer fails, the circuit selects its output
to be the same as that produced by the two good computers. This arrangement is called
triple modular redundancy and makes the system highly reliable. Another example of the
computer as a controller can be found in the automobile. Car manufacturers want to
increase the efficiency and performance of the internal combustion engine and reduce the
emission of harmful combustion products. The temperature and pressure of the air, the
angle of the crankshaft, and several other variables have to be measured thousands of
times a second. These input parameters are used to calculate how much fuel should be
injected into each cylinder.

1.4 The stored program computer

In particular, the digital computer is serially organized and performs a single instruction at a
time, whereas the brain has a highly parallel organization and is able to carry out many
activities at the same time. Somewhere in every computer's memory is a block of
information that we call a program. The word program has the same meaning as it does in
the expression program of studies, or program of music. A computer program is a collection
of instructions defining the actions to be carried out by the computer sequentially. The
classic analogy with a computer program is a recipe in a cookery book. The recipe is a
sequence of commands that must be obeyed one by one in the correct order. Our analogy
between the computer program and the recipe is particularly appropriate because the
cookery instructions involve operations on ingredients, just as the computer carries out
operations on data stored in memory. Figure 1.2 describes how a digital computer can be
divided into two parts: a central processing unit (CPU) and a memory system. The CPU reads
the program from memory and executes the operations specified by the program. The word
execute means carry out; for example, the instruction add A to B causes the addition of a
quantity called A to a quantity called B to be carried out. The actual nature of these
instructions does not matter here. What is important is that the most complex actions
carried out by a computer can be broken down into a number of more primitive operations.
But then again, the most sublime thoughts of Einstein or Beethoven can be reduced to a
large number of impulses transmitted across the synapses of the cells in their brains. The
memory system stores two types of information; the program and the data acted on or
created by the program. It isn't necessary to store both the program and data in the same
memory.
Most computers store programs and data in a single memory system and are called von
Neumann machines (Von Neumann architecture). A computer is little more than a black box
that moves information from one point to another and processes the information as it goes
along.

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When we say information we mean the data and the instructions held inside the computer.
Figure 1.2 shows two information-carrying paths connecting the CPU to its memory. The
lower path with the single arrowhead from the memory to the CPU (heavily shaded in Fig.
1.2) indicates the route taken by the computer's program. The CPU reads the sequence of
commands that make up a program one by one from its memory. The upper path (lightly
shaded in Fig. 1.2) with arrows at both its ends transfers data between the CPU and
memory. The program controls the flow of information along the data path. This data path
is bidirectional, because data can flow in two directions. During a write cycle data generated
by the program flows from the CPU to the memory where it is stored for later use. During a
read cycle the CPU requests the retrieval of a data item from memory, which is transferred
from the memory to the CPU.

Figure 1.2: The organization of a computer

1.5 The PC—a naming of parts

This section takes a look at the computer with which most readers will be familiar, the PC.
Figure 1.3a & Figure 1.3b shows a typical single-board computer (SBC). As its name
suggests, the SBC consists of one printed circuit board containing the microprocessor,
memory, peripherals, and everything else it needs to function.

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 Figure 1.3a: The Microcontroller SBC

Figure 1.3b: The Make Controller Kit with an Atmel AT91SAM7X256 (ARM)
microcontroller.
Source: Wikipedia

Such a board can be embedded in systems ranging from automobile engines to cell phones. The
principal characteristic of the SBC is its lack of expandability or flexibility. Once you've made it,
the system can't be expanded.

The PC is very different from the single-board computer because each user has their own
requirements; some need lots of memory and fast video processing and some need several
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peripherals such as printers and scanners. One way of providing flexibility is to design a system
with slots into which you can plug accessories. This allows you to buy a basic system with
functionality that is common to all computers with that board and then you can add specific
enhancements such as a video card or a sound card. Figure 1.4 & Figure 1.6a shows a PC
motherboard. The motherboard contains the CPU and all the electronics necessary to connect
the CPU to memory and to provide basic input/output such as a keyboard and mouse interface
and an interface to floppy and hard disk drives (including CD and DVD drives). The motherboard
in Figure. 1.4 has four areas of expandability. Program and data memory can be plugged into
slots allowing the user to implement enough memory for their application (and their purse). You
can also plug a video card into a special graphics slot, allowing you to use a basic system for
applications such as data processing or an expensive state of-the-art graphics card for a high-
performance games machine with fast 3D graphics.

Figure 1.4: The PC Motherboard

The CPU itself fits into a rectangular slot and is not permanently installed on the
motherboard. If you want a faster processor, you can buy one and plug it in your
motherboard. This strategy helps prevent the computer becoming out of date too soon. The
motherboard has built-in interfaces that are common to nearly all systems. A typical
motherboard has interfaces to a keyboard and mouse, a floppy disk drive, and up to four

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 hard disks or CD ROMs. Over the last few years, special purpose functions have migrated
from plug-in cards to the motherboard. For example, the USB serial interface, the local area
network, and the audio system have been integrated on some of the high-performance
motherboards. The motherboard in Figure 1.4 has five PCI connectors. These connectors
allow you to plug cards into the motherboard. Each connector is wired to a bus, a set of
parallel conductors that carry information between the cards and the CPU and memory.
One of the advantages of a PC is its expandability because you can plug such a wide variety
of cards into its bus. There are modems and cards that capture and process images from
camcorders. There are cards that contain TV receivers. There are cards that interface a PC
to industrial machines in a factory etc.

1.5.1 Naming the System Components

A modern PC is both simple and complicated. It is simple in the sense that over the years,
many of the components used to construct a system have become integrated with other
components into fewer and fewer actual parts. It is complicated in the sense that each part
in a modern system performs many more functions than did the same types of parts in
older systems. Figure 1.5 shows well labeled PC system unit components and Figure 1.6a &
Figure 1.6b shows a colored picture of motherboard and motherboard back panel
respectively.

Here are the components and peripherals necessary to assemble a basic modern PC system:

 Motherboard
 Processor
 Memory (RAM)
 Case/chassis
 Power supply
 Floppy drive
 Hard disk
 CD-ROM, CD-RW, or DVD-ROM drive
 Keyboard
 Mouse
 Video card
 Monitor (display)
 Sound card
 Speakers
 Modem

A breakdown of these items is shown in Table 1.1.

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Table 1.1 Basic PC Components

Component Description

Motherboard The motherboard is the core of the system. It really is the PC; everything else is
connected to it, and it controls everything in the system.

Processor The processor is often thought of as the "engine" of the computer. It's also called
the CPU (central processing unit).

Memory (RAM) The system memory is often called RAM (for random access memory). This is the
primary memory, which holds all the programs and data the processor is using at a
given time.

Case/chassis The case is the frame or chassis that houses the motherboard, power supply, disk
drives, adapter cards, and any other physical components in the system.

Power supply The power supply is what feeds electrical power to every single part in the PC.

Floppy drive The floppy drive is a simple, inexpensive, low-capacity, removable-media, magnetic
storage device.

Hard drive The hard disk is the primary archival storage memory for the system.

CD-ROM/DVD-ROM CD-ROM (compact disc read-only) and DVD-ROM (digital versatile disc read-only)
drives are relatively high-capacity, removable media, optical drives.

Keyboard The keyboard is the primary device on a PC that is used by a human to

communicate with and control a system.

Mouse Although many types of pointing devices are on the market today, the first and most
popular device for this purpose is the mouse.

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Video card The video card controls the information you see on the monitor.

Monitor Monitor is the display unit.

Sound card It enables the PC to generate complex sounds.

Modem Most prebuilt PCs ship with a modem (generally an internal modem).

Figure 1.5: Components of the System Unit

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Figure 1.6a: The Motherboard

Figure 1.6b: Motherboard back panel

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References:

1. Alan Clements Principles of Computer Hardware, 4th Edition: Oxford University Press

2. http://computerit4u.weebly.com/system-unit.html

3. https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=29470&seqNum=3

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