Object Oriented Programming with C++, Second Edition

1.1 HARDWARE

Since computers have become so common, we frequently use various terms in an approximate way. Let us have a look at various terms from the hardware. The word machine is a simple term for computer. Another common term for a computer is system.

Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the brain of the computer. It interprets and executes the machine language instructions. Random access memory (RAM) is the internal memory devices that can read from or written to in random access manner. Memory is the hardware component where program and data are stored during program execution. The basic unit of storing information is called bit. Name “bit” stands for binary digit. It can take only values 0 and 1. A sequence of 8 bits is called a byte. It is ...