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Hardware andSoftware Basics

HardwareBasics

Exploting

computer

hardware is

important to to

gained a

competitive ad -

vantages

CENTRAL

PROCESSING

* The dominant manufacturers of

CPUs today include Intel

*Advanced Micro Devices

(AMD) (withits Athlon series

*MD was initially dismissed as acompany that simply cloned

current chips, producing

*Central processing unit

(CPU)

*Primary storage

*Secondary storage

*Input devices

*Output devices

*Communication devices

is the actual hardwarethat interprets and executesthe program (software) instructionsand coordinateshow all the other hardware

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CPU Speed Factors

*AMD: Security, virtualization, and advanced power-

management technology

*IBM: Cryptography for additional security and

floating point capability for faster graphics,processing

*Intel: Cryptography for additional security, hardware-assisted virtualization

PRIMARY

STORAGE

Primary storageis thecomputers main memory,which consists of the randomaccess memory (RAM),cache memory, and theread-only memory (ROM)that is directly accessible tothe CPU.

Cache Memory Cache memory

is a small unit of ultra-fastmemory that is usedto store recently accessed orfrequently accessed data so thatthe CPU does not have

to retrieve this data from slower

memory circuits such as RAM.

Read-Only Memory (ROM) Read-only memory(ROM)is the portion of a computersprimary storage that does not lose its contents when one

switches off the power.

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SECONDARY

STORAGE

Storage is a hot area in the business arena asorganizationsstruggle to make sense of exploding volumesofdata. Storage sales grew more than 16 percentto nearly$8 billion in 2004, according to IDC marketresearch.Secondar y storageconsists of equipmentdesigned

to store large volumes of data for long-term

storage.

INPUT

DEVICES

An input deviceis equipmentused to capture information

and commands

OUTPUT

DEVICES

An output deviceis equipment usedto see, hear, or otherwise accept theresults

of information processing requests.

Among output devices, printers and

monitors

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Computer

Categories

Supercomputers today can hitprocessing capabilities of well over200 teraflopsthe equivalent of everyone on earthperforming 35,000 calculations persecond

Hardware is only as good as the software thatruns it. Over the years, the cost ofhardware has decreased while the complexityand cost of software have increased.

Some large software applications, such as

customer relationship management

Software

SYSTEM

SOFTWARE

System softwarecontrolshow the various technologytools work together alongwith the applicationsoftware. System softwareincludes both operating