Computer Structure

The Processor's three main parts ... C U A Love U Right!

CU- Control Unit
controls the other parts of the processor, makes sure instructions are carried out in the correct order
ALU - Arithmetic Logic Unit
carries out calculations, makes decisions based on logic (and or not)
R- Registers

temporary storage locations used to store addresses to be accessed and data to be written or read
Two of the three buses on the Computer System

Address Bus - (one way) unidirectional, carry the address to be accessed in memory (goes and points at a mem. location) number of wires tells you how many addresses can be accessed. No effect on computer system performance. (2 ^ width = number of addresses)

Data Bus - (both ways) bidirectional, carry data to and from the processor, main memory and devices. Increasing the number of bits for the data bus IMPROVES systems performance as more data can be carried per clock cycle