3

Data Flow in a Computer

In this chapter, we will learn how a computer executes an instruction. We have to understand how a computer operates internally before we can simulate its behavior in Python. We will also introduce the concept of a computer instruction (the smallest operation that it can be commanded to perform) and show you what a computer instruction looks like.

What is a computer? How does it work? What does it do? We will answer these questions by demonstrating how a computer can be designed using Python, and how programs can be run on this simulated computer. Here, we are interested only in how a computer behaves at the machine level – that is, the type of operations it carries out. We are not concerned with the internal design ...

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