Processing Hardware, Software

Hardware Hardware Processing is performed by a computer ’ s central processing unit and is measured by the clock speed. Processing is dependent on the memory capabilities of the system.

Hardware The logical parts of a typical CPU are usually identified as: ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit), which performs all the processing operations that depend on calculations (the ‘arithmetic’ part) and data comparisons (the ‘logic’ part). The calculations performed by a modern CPU include complex mathematical functions. Logical comparisons include greater than, less than, equal to Registers, which are high speed memories used specifically for the temporary storage of data, calculation results, individual instructions, memory addresses and other values needed immediately by the CPU Control unit, which gets program instructions from memory and controls the operation of the computer

Hardware The logical parts of a typical CPU are usually identified as: Clock, which acts like the ‘heartbeat’ of the CPU. It controls the timing of all operations within the CPU Buses, which connect the CPU with primary storage (RAM and ROM) and the input/output devices attached to the computer. Some buses are used to identify memory addresses, while others are used to move data into and out of the CPU

Hardware The fetch-execute cycle, or machine cycle, is a cycle of events on a single instruction carried out by the CPU to process data. Before an instruction is processed, the instructions and data are placed in memory. The CPU performs the following steps for each instruction: 1.The control unit fetches the instructions from memory. 2.The control unit decodes the instructions (works out what to do) and makes the data available to the arithmetic logic unit. The first two steps are called the instruction time or i-time.

Hardware 3.The arithmetic logic unit performs the operation on the data. 4.The control unit places the result of the operation into memory or a register. Steps 3 and 4 are called the execution time or e- time.

Software Software Each piece of application software processes data. It involves editing and manipulating data. The most common processing software tools for: Text – text editors, word processors, HTML and web editors, database management systems. – Microsoft Word Numbers – Spreadsheets, database management systems – Microsoft Excel Images – paint and draw programs – Adobe Photoshop Audio – audio editors – Garage Band Video – video editors - IMovie

Software Most of the software tools used to collect and organise the different types of data are also used to process or edit the collected data. Processing of audio and video data types, because of their more complicated nature, is often performed by specialised editing software. However one of the most simplest and most common of processing tasks is text editing – often called ‘ word processing ’. The simplest text processing tool is the editor, which allows you to collect and process any text data as standard ASCII text. Word processors offer more advanced text processing options, such as auto correction of errors, spell checking thesaurus. The spell checker allows you to change misspelt words and the thesaurus, which allows you to use alternative words.

Software HTML editors are specialised text processors designed to deal with the HTML code that creates web pages. They largely automate the task of editing the complex html codes. The editor analyses the keystrokes and is able to provide a list of relevant code segments that will complete a particular processing task that the user has started to enter. Many HTML editors can also act as web editors and will allow you to edit web pages in the same way you would edit a word processed document.

Software Database management software and spreadsheet programs can process numerical and text data. Both of these tools allow numerical to be exported to other applications for further processing. Numerical data can also be processed by standard text editing tools if it has been organised and stored as ASCII text instead of in binary format.

Software A wide range of graphical application programs can perform image data processing. There is almost no limit to the image editing that can be performed using these programs. The data stored in a part of the image bit map are being altered to change the colours of the individual pixels. The specialised filters, plugins and brushes provided as tools with image processing software make this task easier for the user.

Software Audio processing software allows users to alter any characteristic of a recorded sound. Audio processing is common in entertainment industries to clean up sound tracks (for example, by removing background noise) or in mixing sounds together (for example, from different instrumental and vocal tracks). Cutting, copying and pasting audio data is as simple as cutting, copying and pasting audio data is as simple as cutting, copying and pasting text data.

Software Video processing software has started to become a common feature of many home computer systems. The arrival of consumer level digital video cameras has created a market for digital video editing software. Some computers, such as Apple ’ s iMac, come with basic but easy to use video editing software as standard tools. The most common use of consumer video editing software is to cut and paste scenes between different video segments. This allows the user to put together their own sequence of video images. Other processing features, such as adding titles, mixing sound tracks and different fades scenes, are also available.