Neon-komputadór

Processor (Central Processing Unit)

The processor or Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the main calculating engine of a computer and is certainly the most expensive single component of a computer system. The main specifications of a Processor is the speed of operation and the "width" of operation. The speed of a processor is the simpler concept. Measured in megahertz (millions of cycles per second), the faster the processor, the better it is. The "width" of a processor consists of three main quantities - the number of internal registries, the size of the data input and output bus and the size of the memory address bus. The internal registry determines the size of the data the chip can deal with internally. The data bus width determines the size of data the chip can transfer in and out. The memory address determines the maximum size of memory that the chip can send and receive data. Furthermore, a processor usually has internal cache memory, which provides temporary high access speed memory space.

All computers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs use Intel Pentium chips, which vary in speed from 166 MHz on the older Compaq machines to the new Hyundai Pentium IV processors which run at 1600 MHz. The older Pentium processors have 32-bit internal registers, 64-bit data bus and can access up to 4GB of memory. Their cache is 2x16kb. In comparison, whilst the internal registers and data-bit bus are the same (it is still a Pentium after all), new Pentium IV's have a 521kb cache, and has a system bus which at process data up to 800 MHz..

Physically, the sort of CPU used in the Ministry is a large square with the chip itself surrounded by its components. There are a large number of prongs on the base of the chip, as it sits in socket configuration on the motherboard. An large heatsink and fan are necessary component of modern Intel CPU's - without these, the CPU would soon overheat. A common computer problem with cheaper deskside or tower cases is that the heatsink is poorly attached to the CPU and often falls off.

It is expected that in the near future Intel will release a new processor called an 'Itanium', with 64-bit internal architecture and a 128 bit data bus.

Bits and Bytes

A computer measures information in terms of bits, representing high or low voltage and is expressed as 0 or 1, or a 'bit' (think of 'a bit of information'). Any instruction or expression in computing consists of an array of 0s and 1s. For example, the letter 'A' in the ASCII character code is 01000001. A single '0' or '1' is a 'bit' and a string of 8 bits = 1 byte. These days, computer memory is usually measured in megabytes (millions of bytes) and hard disk storage in gigabytes (thousands of millions of bytes). But just to make matters slightly confusing, this is only an approximation. Because a byte operates in sets of 8 rather than sets of 10, a kilobyte for example, represents 1,024 bytes, not 1,000 as would be expected. As an approximation however, it's close enough for day-to-day estimations. The abbreviations for these terms are kb for kilobyte, meg or mb for megabytes and gig or gb for gigabytes.