Every digital computer, regardless of power, is built upon a single, primitive concept: . These are physical circuits (usually implemented with transistors) that perform basic Boolean functions on one or two binary inputs (0 or 1, representing low or high voltage). The fundamental gates are AND, OR, and NOT.
The processor introduces the concept of time. Through a clock signal—a rhythmic electrical Every digital computer, regardless of power, is built
These circuits have "memory." Their output depends on both current inputs and past history. The processor introduces the concept of time
Using logic gates, engineers build fundamental circuits: Its heart is the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU),
is a massive network of these circuits organized into a functional unit. Its heart is the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU), which handles math and logic, and the Control Unit, which acts as a conductor. The CPU operates on a relentless "Fetch-Decode-Execute" cycle, pulling binary instructions from memory and pulsing them through its circuits at billions of cycles per second. This is the Instruction Set Architecture (ISA)