WGU Computer Architecture study well performed 2024.

Personal Computer(PC) - ANSWERSA computer designed for use by an individual, usually incorporating a graphics display, a keyboard, and a mouse Server - ANSWERSA computer used for running larger programs for multiple users, often simultaneously, and typically accessed only via a network Supercomputer - ANSWERSA class of computers with the highest performance and cost; they are configured as servers and typically cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars Embedded computer - ANSWERSA computer inside another device used for running one predetermined application or collection of software. Personal mobile devices(PMDs) - ANSWERSAre small wireless devices to connect to the internet; they rely on batteries for power, and software is installed by downloading apps. Conventional examples are smart phones and tables Cloud computing - ANSWERSrefers to large collections of servers that provide services over the internet; some providers rent dynamically varying numbers of servers as a utility Software as a Service (SaaS) - ANSWERSdelivers software and data as a service over the internet, usually via a thin program such as a browser that runs on local client devices, instead of binary code that must be installed, and runs wholly on that device. Examples include web search and social networking Acronym - ANSWERSA word constructed by taking the initial letters of a string of words. For example: RAM is an acronym for Random Access Memory, and CPU is an acronym for Central Processing Unit Terabyte(TB) - ANSWERSOriginally 1,099,511,627,776(2^40) bytes, although communications and secondary storage systems developers started using the term to mean 1,000,000,000,000(10^12) bytes. To reduce confusion, we now use the term tebibyte(TiB) - ANSWERSfor 2^40 bytes Moore's Law - ANSWERSStates that integrated circuit resources double every 18-24 months Abstraction to Simplify Design - ANSWERSUsed to characterize the design at different levels of representation; lower-level details are hidden to offer a simpler model at higher levels Common Case Fast - ANSWERSWill tend to enhance performance better than optimizing the rare case. Performance via parallelism - ANSWERSSince the dawn of computing, computer architects have offered designs that get more performance by computer operations in parallel Pipelining - ANSWERSMoves multiple operations through hardware units that each do a piece of an operation, akin to water flowing through a pipeline Prediction - ANSWERSIn some cases it can be faster on average to guess the start working rather than wait until you know for sure, assuming that the mechanism to recover from a misprediction is not too expensive and your prediction is relatively accurate. Hierarchy of Memories - ANSWERSThis is used to address conflicting demands of fast, large, and cheap memory with the fastest, smallest, and most expensive memory per bit at the top of the hierarchy and the slowest, largest, and cheapest per bit at the bottom. Dependability via Redundancy - ANSWERSWe make systems Dependable by including redundant components that can take over when a failure occurs. System Software - ANSWERSSoftware that provides services that are commonly useful, including operating systems, compilers, loaders, and assemblers Operating system - ANSWERSSupervising program that manages the resources of a computer for the benefit of the programs that run on that computer Compiler - ANSWERSA program that translates high-level language statements into assembly language statements Instruction - ANSWERSA command that computer hardware understands and obeys Assembler - ANSWERSA program that translates a symbolic version of instructions into the binary version High-level programming language - ANSWERSA portable language such as C, C++, Java, or Visual Basic that is composed of words and algebraic notation that can be translated by a compiler into assembly language Input device - ANSWERSA mechanism through which the computer is fed information, such as a keyboard Output device - ANSWERSA mechanism that conveys the result of a computation to a user, such as a display, or to another computer Liquid crystal display - ANSWERSA display technology using a thin layer of liquid polymers that can be used to transmit or block light according to whether a change is applied Active matrix display - ANSWERSA liquid crystal display using a transistor to control the transmission of light at each individual pixel pixel - ANSWERSThe smallest individual picture element. Screens are composed of hundreds of thousands to millions of pixels, organized in a matrix Integrated circuit - ANSWERSAlso called a chip. A device combining dozens to millions of transistors Central Processor unity(CPU) - ANSWERSAlso called processor. The active part of the computer, which contains the datapath and control and which adds numbers, tests numbers, signals I/O devices to activate, and so on