I need a quick explantion

[Dan0512]

hello, im working on this 20 page computer report, and I need a bit of help on how the Cpu's work. I've tried searching the internet, but their explanations are a bit too complicated. So far I know that they have transistors , and that they close or open a circuit. 0 volts can mean "0", and 2 volts can mean "1", the CPU can work these numbers to do what it wants. Ok, is what got out from those 8 page articles correct? I know there is more to it (like the languages, and some controllers, etc), but I can't quite understand those yet. Now can someone plz give me a 15yr old explanation that I can help me with the report?

thx

dan

 

[Zulu-1]

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=384756
have a read of that.. it answers your question a bit

 

[wdeep4]

There's a ton of information about this on the internet. (I just did a google search on "basic computer architecture" and got 21 million hits...) Why not take a more thorough look through some of it yourself first, and then if you have additional questions or need further clarification, then we can provide that for you. Good luck.

 

[wdeep4]

BTW - I wasn't trying to be "funny" in my previous post - i.e. no one's suggesting you browse through 21 million hits. But if you look through the first dozen or so (which I did), you'll see that there's a wealth of good information there which should help you put together your school paper.

I'm quite well versed in computer architecture, and I initially thought of simply writing something up for you, but then that wouldn't be doing you much good in the long run, because IMO if you do the research yourself, then it will really "stick". But if you do get something more tangible written up, then please go ahead and post it and we'll be happy to take a look at it for you.

 

[Dan0512]

well I actually showed the graphic card section to the teacher, and she said it is too complicated (says too many terms - geeze are the teachers and kids so ignorant?) she can't even understand the bandwidth calculations..., well so I guess Im going to have to make the CPU section simple enough. I've pretty much written that the CPU has a bunch of transistors, these open and close a circuit. There is a unit that reads the voltage, 0 is 0, and 1.5 (varies with CPU) is a 1. 0 and 1 are it's binary Language. It works on data depending on the instructions. The CPU has some codecs, so it knows how to add and substract, multiply, etc. It also tell the RAM to save or retrieve data, as well as the HD.. The CPU is connected with the rest of the system with the bus. All the data travels through the bus... This is not actually how it looks in the paper, just a brief summary. I also have to write the report on german..bah.

Then to the CPU itself- I know that it works at the speed of the bus (100-200 MHZ), and that the multyplier is the one that gives the final speed, but what is actually the multiplier, and how does it work?

Dan

 

[Gnufsh]

It is not terribly complicated to build some basic logical operators out of transistors. A few can give you the functions you need to do everything a cpu needs: and, or and not (you can also do it with different combinations of instructions). Using these, you can build up what becomes the functional units of a cpu, circuits to add, multiply, etc. You start with something very simple and put enough together that it becomes very complicated. arstechnica.com has some very good articles about how modern cpus work (pipelining, out of order execution, etc).