Difference between revisions of "CSC103 Notes, Newer Version"
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The goal of the course is to make students literate about the basic operations of a modern computer, and to cover some of the concepts and issues that are assumed to be understood by the general population, in particular concepts one will find in newspaper articles, such as that of the von Neumann bottleneck, or Moore's Law. | The goal of the course is to make students literate about the basic operations of a modern computer, and to cover some of the concepts and issues that are assumed to be understood by the general population, in particular concepts one will find in newspaper articles, such as that of the von Neumann bottleneck, or Moore's Law. | ||
| − | Understanding how computers work first requires observing that they are the physical implementation of rules of mathematics. So in the first part of this book we introduce simple concepts of logic, and explain how the binary system (where we only have 0 and 1 as digits to express numbers) works. We then explain how electronic switches, such as transistors, can be used to implement simple logic circuits which we call logic gates. Remarkably, these logic gates are all that is needed to perform arithmetic operations on binary numbers. | + | Understanding how computers work first requires observing that they are the physical implementation of rules of mathematics. So in the first part of this book we introduce simple concepts of logic, and explain how the binary system (where we only have 0 and 1 as digits to express numbers) works. We then explain how electronic switches, such as transistors, can be used to implement simple logic circuits which we call logic gates. Remarkably, these logic gates are all that is needed to perform arithmetic operations, such as addition or subtractions, on binary numbers. |
At this point, we figure out that an important part of computers and computing as to do with ''codes''. A code is just a system where some symbols are used to represent other symbols. The simplest code we introduce is the one we use to pass from the world of logic where everything is either ''true'' or ''false'' to the world of binary numbers where digits are either ''1'' or ''0''. In this case the code we use is to say that the value ''true'' can also be represented by ''1'', and ''false'' by ''0''. Codes are extremely important in the computer world, as everything at the lowest level is really based on ''1''s and ''0''s, but we organize the information through ''coding'' to represent extremely complex and sophisticated systems. | At this point, we figure out that an important part of computers and computing as to do with ''codes''. A code is just a system where some symbols are used to represent other symbols. The simplest code we introduce is the one we use to pass from the world of logic where everything is either ''true'' or ''false'' to the world of binary numbers where digits are either ''1'' or ''0''. In this case the code we use is to say that the value ''true'' can also be represented by ''1'', and ''false'' by ''0''. Codes are extremely important in the computer world, as everything at the lowest level is really based on ''1''s and ''0''s, but we organize the information through ''coding'' to represent extremely complex and sophisticated systems. | ||
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Revision as of 13:07, 7 August 2014
--D. Thiebaut (talk) 12:56, 7 August 2014 (EDT)
--© D. Thiebaut 2012, 2013, 2014
Last revised --D. Thiebaut (talk) 08:05, 9 October 2013 (EDT)
