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Your course textbook can be accessed via the DART eBook link in the Getting Started module.
Text:
Null, L. & Lobur, J. (2018). Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture (5th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Context:
Most computers are built using the Von Neumann model, which is centered on memory being stored in the same physical entity as the execution code. The programs that perform the processing are stored in memory. We examined a small 4 × 3-bit memory in Chapter 3, and we learned how to address memory in Chapters 4 and 5. We know memory is logically structured as a linear array of locations, with addresses from 0 to the maximum memory size the processor can address. In this chapter, we examine the various types of memory and how each is part of the memory hierarchy system. We then look at cache memory (a special high-speed memory) and a method that utilizes memory to its fullest by means of virtual memory implemented via paging. In addition, we will have a first look at the memory hierarchy of modern computers and learn the reason for its complexity.
One could easily argue that computers are more useful to us as appliances for information storage and retrieval than they are as instruments of computation. Indeed, without having some means of getting data into the computer and information out of it, we have little use at all for a CPU and memory. We interact with these components only through the I/O devices connected to them. With personal systems, for example, a keyboard and mouse are the primary user input devices. A standard monitor is an output-only device that presents results to the user. Although most printers provide device status information to the host system to which they are connected, they are still considered output-only devices. Disk drives are called input/output devices because data can be written to and read from them. I/O devices also exchange control and status information with the host system. We observe that the term I/O is commonly used both as an adjective and as a noun: Computers have I/O devices connected to them, and to achieve good performance, one endeavors to keep disk I/O to a minimum.
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