Computer System Design

Abstract

One of the most common digital systems in use today is the computer. A computer accomplishes tasks through an architecture that uses both hardware and software. The hardware in a computer consists of many of the elements that we have covered so far. These include registers, arithmetic and logic circuits, finite-state machines, and memory. What makes a computer so useful is that the hardware is designed to accomplish a predetermined set of instructions. These instructions are relatively simple, such as moving data between memory and a register or performing arithmetic on two numbers. The instructions are comprised of binary codes that are stored in a memory device and represent the sequence of operations that the hardware will perform to accomplish a task. This sequence of instructions is called a computer program. What makes this architecture so useful is that the preexisting hardware can be programmed to perform an almost unlimited number of tasks by simply defining the sequence of instructions to be executed. The process of designing the sequence of instructions, or program, is called software development or software engineering.