Processors Size of instruction set

8088/8086 115
186 126
286 142
386 200
486 206

Processor
- the chip on the main system board that performs the basic operations of the computer
Instruction set
- the set of all possible instructions that a processor can perform
machine language
- set of basic operations performed by the processor
- the only language understood by computers
- encoded entirely using numbers
- impossible to be used by humans
computer language
- set of instructions with which programs can be written
- synonymous to programming language
high level language
- uses human like language in issuing instructions
- compilers and interpreters are used to convert high level languages to machine language
low level language
- a language with instructions that are close to machine language
- assemblers are used to convert low level languages to machine language
Assembly Language
- low level language in which mnemonic abbreviations represent machine operations and storage
locations
- used to program the processor without using machine language
real mode
- a state of operation in which a 286, 386, 486 or Pentium behaves like a fast 8088
- in real mode a computer can execute most programs written in older PCs
Protected mode
- a state of operation in which a 286, 386, 486 or Pentium can access more resources and capabilities
aside from the ones present in the 8088
assembler
- a program that processes assembly programs’ source code into a machine language called load module
linker
- a program that process an assembly program into a form that can be executed
source program
- input of an assembler
- synonymous to source code
object module
- machine language translation of a source program
- a file with an extension of obj
- an output of an assembler
- input of a linker
load module
- an executable version of an object module
- output of a linker
bit paragraph
- abbreviation for a binary digit - 128 bits
- fundamental storage unit of a computer - 16 bytes
memory - 8 words
- either 1 or 0 ASCII
byte - American standard code for information
- a unit of memory containing of 8 bits interchange
word - Code used to store textual characters in
- a unit of memory containing 16 bits memory
- 2 bytes - Each character is represented by a unique 8
doubleword bit pattern
- 32 bits Kilobyte
- 4 bytes - a unit of memory containing 1024 bytes
- 2 words - K Byte
quadword - KB
- 64 bits Megabyte
- 8 bytes - a unit of memory containing 1024 KB
- 4 words - M Byte
- MB

1 Hex Digit = 4 bits

Measuring Memory Size

- computers handle data in bytes not in bits
- memory is measured in bytes, KB or MB or GB