Computers as Components, 3rd Edition

2.2 Preliminaries

In this section, we will look at some general concepts in computer architecture and programming, including some different styles of computer architecture and the nature of assembly language.

2.2.1 Computer Architecture Taxonomy

Before we delve into the details of microprocessor instruction sets, it is helpful to develop some basic terminology. We do so by reviewing a taxonomy of the basic ways we can organize a computer.

von Neumann architectures

A block diagram for one type of computer is shown in Figure 2.1. The computing system consists of a central processing unit (CPU) and a memory. The memory holds both data and instructions, and can be read or written when given an address. A computer whose memory holds both data and ...