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Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, such as the central processing unit (CPU), random access memory (RAM), motherboard, computer data storage, graphics card, sound card, and computer case. It includes external devices such as a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and speakers. [1] [2]
A computer instruction describes an operation such as add or multiply X, while the operand (or operands, as there can be more than one) specify on which X to operate as well as the value of X. Additionally, in assembly language, an operand is a value (an argument) on which the instruction, named by mnemonic, operates.
See also References External links A Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) A dedicated video bus standard introduced by INTEL enabling 3D graphics capabilities; commonly present on an AGP slot on the motherboard. (Presently a historical expansion card standard, designed for attaching a video card to a computer's motherboard (and considered high-speed at launch, one of the last off-chip parallel ...
In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA) is an abstract model that generally defines how software controls the CPU in a computer or a family of computers. [1] A device or program that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an implementation of that ISA.
Early computers often worked lock-step with their main memory, which reduced the advantages of large register files. A common design note from the minicomputer market of the 1960s was to have the registers be physically implemented in main memory, in which case the performance advantage was simply that the instruction could directly refer to the location rather than having to use a second byte ...
The computer takes both operands from the topmost (most recent) values of the stack. The computer replaces those two values with the calculated difference, sum, or product. In other words the instruction's operands are "popped" off the stack, and its result(s) are then "pushed" back onto the stack, ready for the next instruction.
The first computer to have multiple parallel discrete single-bit ALU circuits was the 1951 Whirlwind I, which employed sixteen such "math units" to enable it to operate on 16-bit words. In 1967, Fairchild introduced the first ALU-like device implemented as an integrated circuit, the Fairchild 3800, consisting of an eight-bit arithmetic unit ...
An instruction set architecture (ISA) is an abstract model of a computer, also referred to as computer architecture.A realization of an ISA is called an implementation.An ISA permits multiple implementations that may vary in performance, physical size, and monetary cost (among other things); because the ISA serves as the interface between software and hardware.