Across
- 4. Electrical channel that transfers electronic bits internally within the circuitry of a computer, allowing the devices both inside and attached to the system unit to communicate with each other.
- 7. Small piece of semiconducting material, usually silicon, on which integrated circuits are etched.
- 8. Point at which a peripheral attaches to or communicates with a system unit so it can send data to or receive information from the computer.
- 9. Unique number that identifies the location of a byte in memory.
- 12. ROM chips that contain permanently written data, instructions, or information, recorded on the chips when they were manufactured.
- 13. Representation of data using only two discrete states: on (1) and off (0).
- 18. Continuous (wave form) signals.
- 20. Type of memory that does not lose its contents when a computer’s power is turned off.
- 21. Approximately one trillion bytes.
- 22. Area of memory that stores the contents of frequently used data or instructions.
- 23. Small, high-speed storage locations in a process that temporarily hold data and instructions
- 25. Term used by some computer and chip manufacturers to refer to a processor chip for a personal computer.
- 26. Eight bits that are grouped together as a unit. A byte provides enough different combinations of 0s and 1s to represent 256 individual characters.
- 29. Approximately 1 billion bytes.
- 32. Electronic component on a computer’s motherboard that interprets and carries out the basic instructions that operate the computer.
- 33. Approximately 1 million bytes.
- 34. Family of Intel processors used in most high-performance PCs.
- 35. Device that joins a cable to a port.
- 36. Exactly 1,024 bytes.
- 38. Type of memory that can be read from and written to by the processor and other devices. Programs and data are loaded into RAM from storage devices such as a hard disk and remain in RAM as long as the computer has continuous power.
- 41. One billion ticks of the system clock per second.
- 43. American Standard Code for Information Interchange; the most widely used coding system to represent data.
Down
- 1. Family of Intel processors used by less expensive, basic PCs.
- 2. Operations that involve comparing one data item with another to determine whether the first item is greater than, equal to, or less than the other item.
- 3. Concept in which the processor begins fetching a second instruction before it completes the machine cycle for the first instruction
- 5. Processor operation that writes a result to memory.
- 6. size Number of bits a computer can interpret and execute at a given time.
- 8. Device that connects to a system unit and is controlled by the processor in the computer.
- 10. Port that can connect up to 127 different peripherals with a single connector type.
- 11. Type of memory that loses its contents when a computer’s power is turned off.
- 14. External device that attaches to a mobile computer or device and provides power connections to peripherals, along with memory cards, optical disc drives, and other devices.
- 15. Term sometimes used to identify an audio or video port.
- 16. Type of memory that can be read from and written to by the processor and other devices.
- 17. Main circuit board of the system unit, which has some electronic components attached to it and others built into it.
- 19. One billionth of a second.
- 24. Drive bay that allows users to access openings in the bay from outside the system unit.
- 26. The smallest unit of data a computer can process. Bit is short for binary digit.
- 27. Processing method that uses multiple processors simultaneously to execute a single program or task in order to speed processing times.
- 28. Electronic components in a computer that store instructions waiting to be executed by the processor, the data needed by those instructions, and the results of processing the data.
- 30. Processor operation that carries out commands; part of the machine cycle.
- 31. Processor operation that translates a program instruction into signals the computer can execute.
- 37. One clock cycle per second.
- 39. Adapter card that converts computer output into a video signal that travels through a cable to the monitor, which displays an image on the screen
- 40. Processor operation that obtains a program instruction or data item from memory.
- 42. Opening inside the system unit in which additional equipment can be installed.