A computer does not have © Pace sond the daa in set umber. ory address to store and re- memory chips, just as a post 1001100 zero and go up to one less conjunction with the com- ple, most newer video and printers, some of these, such as the CPU's registers and memory. In this section, you will to search its entire memory 10011101100001001111101100101 each time it needs to find data because the CPU uses a mem- trieve each piece of data (sce cru Figure 44.11). A ry ad- dress is a number thar indi- cates a location on the ae comes (ad) lai office box number indicates a slot into which mail is placed. Memory addresses start at than the number of bytes of memory in the computer. RAM is not used just in puter’s CPU. RAM can be found in various places in a computer system, For exam- sound cards have their own built-in RAM (see Figure 4A.12), as do many types of Factors Affecting Processing Speed A CPU's design determines its basic speed, but other factors cam make chips al- ready designed for speed work even faster. You already have been introduced see how other factors—such as the cache memory, the clock speed, and’che data bus—affect a computer's speed, Figure 4.13 shows how these components might be arranged on the computer's motherboard. Registers ‘The registers in the first PCs could hold two bytes—16 bits—each. Most CPUs sold today, for both PCs and Macintosh computers, have 32-bit registers. Many newer PCs, as well as minicomputers and high-end workstations, have 64-bit registers. mor chips, FIGURE 44.14 Torequest «byte data, te CPU sents memory adress to RAM FIGURE 44.12 Merey cigs eb found in many parts a cornpute sytem, video car Norge @ For move latormation on processing speeds, isk hitpe/Parw.minb.comy peterorton, Processing Data h as tis 133| | % At Issue f B Cyborg: the melding of man and machine, organism and cit- cuitry. Though no Robocop, metaphoric cyborgs are more than the stuff of media sc}-fi. They are reality for the thou ‘sands who utilize @ new generation of wearable computing device making intimate human-machine interaction now possible, The term wearable computer refers to a wireless computer system worn on the users body, either in a backpack, on a belt, or sewn into a piece of clothing such as a jacket or vest. Some are small enough to fit in the users shirt pocket oF have monitors worn as eyeclasses. Wearable computers are designed specifically for mobile and mostly hands-free operations, often inearporating head-mounted displays and vocal recognition software. Most variations of wearable PCs are always on and always Cyborgs Among Us: Wearable Technology accessible. In this way, this new computing framework dif- fers from that of other existing wireless technologies, such a laptop computers and personal digital assistants. It is this “always ready” feature that is the true hallmark of wearables. Unlike other personal computers or handheld devices, a wearable computer is subsumed into the personal space af the user, becoming almost a part of him or her. This leads to a new form of synergy between human and com- puter, brought about by long-term adaptation through con- stancy of the user-computer interface. Over time, the user adapts to the computer to the point he or she no longer feels as if itis a separate entity. Often users report feeling un- comfortable—even “naked” —without their deviees. The size of the registers, which is sometimes called the word size, indicates the amount of data with which the computer can work at any given time. The bigzer the word size, the more quickly the computer can process a set of data. Occasionally, you will heae processors* or even “64-bit computers.” => This terminology eefees to the size of the registers in the processor. If all other factors 55) FIGURE 4/ 1 | Devioasatfecting processing spew, SELF-CHECK Complete each statement by filing inthe biank{s). 1. A computer's CPU consists of mitions of tiny switches called are kept equal, a CPU with 32-bit registers can process data twice as fast as one with 16-bit registers. Memory and Computing Power “The amount of RAM in a computer can have a profound effect on the computer's power. More RAM means the computer can use bigger, more powerful programs, and those programs can access bigger data files. More RAM also can make the com- puter run faster. The compute necessarily have to load an ¢ gram into memory to run i the greater the amount of the program pro- However, ot ee © regsiers that fits into memory, the faster the pro- 2. Base2is another name forthe gram runs, To run Windows, for exam 4. Bary marber to hexadecknal umbor —¢ dacinal number | ple, the computer usually does not need system ‘system system | t0 load all its files into memory to run , properly; it loads only the most essential 3 ‘can represent more than 4 bilon eitferent characters o& symbols | as imo memory a. ASCH , Extended ASCH © Unicode | When the computer needs access to 134 Chapter 4 other parts of an operating system oF a‘Also untike other portable devices, wearable PCS are full- featured computers, with all of the Functionality of a trad tional desktop or mainframe computer. ‘One company Leading the way in the wearables space is Hitachi. The Hitachi wearable PC unit fs small and Light- ‘weight enough to be cared in a pocket, Ik includes a head- mounted display that gives users the illusion that there is a 13-inch color screen in front of them. Users operate the ma- chine via a tiny handheld optical mouse. ‘The Hitachi wearable PC runs on Microsoft's Windows CE ‘operating system and contains a Hitachi 128 MHz RISC processar and 32 MB of RAM, It also comes with a Flash card and a USB slot. According to the Firm, the unit mea- sures 140 X 90 X 26 mm, and the whole device weighs a slight 500 9. Though still on the cutting edge, many experts bel that wearables will someday soon supersede technologies such as mobile phones and PDAs, holding out the promise that wearable computers will improve the quality of day-to- day life for their Cyborg users. : Wr more am avai, program on the disk, it can unload, mace the operating ‘or swap out, nonessential parts from fstemean belosded tom RAM to the hard disk. Then the ‘he hard ik at tarp. f computer can load, or swap in, the iene rogram code or data it needs. While 7 MB cgi rm rr Sai in efiecive Gitbod for ima the tard dak rere een aging a limited amount of memory, the computer’ system performance is 5 slower because the CPU, memory, and disk are continuously occupied swith the swapping process. Swap- ping unused contents of RAM to the See hard disk is known as virtual mem- ‘ory. As shown in Figure 44.14, if Se pases ie ‘your PC has 128 MB of RAM (or more}, you will notice a deamatic dif- ference in how fast Windows runs ‘because the CPU will nced 10 swap program instructions between RAM and the hard disk much less often. If you purchase a new computer system, it will probably come with at least 256 MB of RAM. suggests 256 MB as the recommended configuration for Windows XP. If you plan to play graphic-intensive games or develop complex graphics, you will ced more RAM. The cost of upgrading the memory of a computer is very low; so up- grading RAM is the simplest and most cost-effective way to get more speed from ‘RAM, then less needs to bo swapped whilethe cormpiter ‘5 unning. FIGURE 40.14 cd Haw Ra 3s speod Processing Oata 135(© ase send na datatn st number ‘or V0¥ 0000400111 10110010. your computer. See the Productivity Tip, this chapter. “Do You Need More RAM?" Later in The Computer's Internal Clock Every microcomputer has a systcm clock, but the clock’s primary purpose is not to keep the time of day. Like most modern wristwatches, the clock is driven by a quartz crystal. When electricity is applied, the molecules in the crystal vibrate mil- lions of times per second, a rate that never changes. The speed of the vibrations is determined by the thickness of the crystal. The computer uses the vibrations of the quartz in the system clock to time its processing operations. ‘Over the ycars, system clocks have become steadily faster. For example, the first PC operated at 4.77 megahertz. Hercz (Hz) is a measure of cycles per second. Megahertz (MHz) means “millions of cycles per second.” Gigaherts (GHz) means “billions of cycles per second.” “The computer's operating speed is tied to the speed of the system clock. For ex- ample, ifa computer's clock speed is $00 MHB, it “ticks” 800 million times per second. A clock cycle is a single tick, or the time it takes to turn a transistor off and back on again. A processor can execute an instruction in a given number of clock cycles. As the system's clock speed increases, so does the number of instruc- tions it ean carry out each second. Clock speeds greater than 1 GHz are now common, and processor speeds are increasing rapidly. At the time this book was written, processor speeds had eclipsed 3 GHz. The Bus ‘Abus isa path berween the ia a computer: the internal ( The system bus resides on the vices that reside on the mother! a computers There are two main buses us and the external (or expansion) bus. feboard and connects the CPU to other de- n expansion bus connects external devices, such as the keyboard, mo pter, and so on, to the CPU, Cables from disk drives and other intersial devices afe plugged into the bus. The system bus hhas two parts: the data bus and the address bus (see Figure 44.15). The Data Bus ‘The data bus is an electrical path that connects the CPU, memory, and the other hardware devices on the motherboard. Actually, the busis a group of parallel wires. inthe bus af- fects the speed at wit ponents, just as the n Tong. it eakes people to can transfer one ight bits at a time, lanes on a highway affects how cir destinations. Because each wire i bus can move: byte (see Figure 44.16). A 16- 04, here it comes. bit bus can transfer two bytes, and a 32-bit bus can transfer four 1001100 FIGURE 48.15 The systom bus neues an adress bus anda data bus. The adress bus leas from the GPU mo RAM. Te daa bus cones the CPUta rary, at at the storage, inptidpat, and communications dover flare attaced tothe moter 135 Chapter bytes at a time. Newer model computers have a 64-bit data bus called the FrontSide Bus that transfers sight bytes at a time. Like the processor, the buss speed is measured in megahertz (MHz) because it has its own clack speed. As you would imagine, the faster a bus's clock speed, the faster it can transfer data berween parts of the computer. The majority of roday's PCs have a bus speed of either 100 MHz or 133 MH, but speeds of 800 MHz and higher are becoming more common. “The bus speed is directly tied into the CPU speed, All processors use a multiplier to make the CPU run faster. Here is how it works. Consider a syétem bus that runs at 400 MHz supporting a 1.6 GHe processor. The fastest the CPU can talk to