References: CPE380 Introduction (Chapter 1)

The introductory slides I used in the lectures are the primary reference.

To familiarize everyone with the "guts" of a computer, I like to begin with a guided tour through the parts of a PC. There are lots of similar walk-throughs available on the WWW and elsewhere. I've also collected a few overview diagrams showing what's inside a modern PC and processor.

The book gives a reasonable introduction and defines a lot of terminology; you should be aware of those terms. You also should recall physically what these things look like from that very first day when we opened a PC. The following links provide additional history references.


CPE380 Computer Organization and Design.