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General Discussion

19 January, 2016 - 11:41

Every task we have the computer do happens inside the central processing unit (CPU) and the associated memory. Once our program is loaded into memory and the operating system directs the CPU to start executing our programming statements the computer looks like this:

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Figure 5.5 Figure 5.5 
CPU Memory Input/Output Devices  

Our program now located in the memory has basically two areas:

  • Machine instructions our instructions for what we want done
  • Data storage our variables that we using in our program

Often our program contains instructions to interact with the input/output devices. We need to move data into (read) and/or out of (write) the memory data area. A device is a piece of equipment that is electronically connected to the memory so that data can be transferred between the memory and the device. Historically this was done with punched cards and printouts. Tape drives were used for electronic storage. With time we migrated to using disk drives for storage with keyboards and monitors (with monitor output called soft copy) replacing punch cards and printouts (called hard copy).

Most computer operating systems and by extension programming languages have identified the keyboard as the standard input device and the monitor as the standard output device. Often the keyboard and monitor are treated as the default device when no other specific device is indicated.