Explore how computer systems store, manipulate, and convert various data types like text, images, and videos through integrated software and hardware. Gain insights into accessible data representation.

Computer systems do not understand human instructions, nor can they perceive real-life data in its raw form. Therefore, computer systems require a way to store and represent information in an accessible way. They use software and hardware components combined to help retrieve information, store it, manipulate it, and convert it back to a human-accessible format. If you want to learn how computer systems perform complex tasks such as storing and manipulating textual data, videos, music, images of your cat, and much more, this course is meant for you.

Information Representation in Computer Systems

The central processing unit (CPU) takes data from the main memory, processes it, and returns the modified data into the main memory. It comprises two subunits called the control unit (CU) and the arithmetic logic unit (ALU). As the name suggests, the arithmetic logic unit processes the data, whereas the control unit controls data flow to and from the main memory.

# Control unit
The control unit coordinates the activities of all parts of a processor to ensure the desired results. It receives data from the main memory which it stores inside the #key# registers: Registers are small (1 byte, 2 bytes, 4 bytes, etc.) storage elements referred to by different names inside a CPU." #key#  in the central processor.


One of the registers, called the **program counter**, contains the address of the current instruction in the main memory. Once the current instruction is completed, the value of the program counter is incremented by one. A program counter with the value of 2 is shown in the image on the right.
If the first instruction is located at memory address 0, and the second instruction is located at memory address 1,
this means the $3^{rd}$ instruction in the main memory is going to be fetched into the CPU and stored inside the instruction register.


 

This lesson will introduce you to the workings of a central processing unit.

Computer basics

Hardware and Software Components of a Computer

Data Representation in Python

Image, Audio, and Video Representation in Python

Data Compression

Central Processing Unit

Control unit