The von Neumann architecture computer system.
We also need to carry
55
John von Neumann described in 1945 a
computer architecture in which both
5 the data and the program were
stored in the computer's memory. Now by
having the program stored in memory it 60
made it a lot easier to change things
because the data and the program are in
10 binary. They're stored in the memory and
you can change the data and the program
whenever you like and this is still 65
the fundamental design concept
behind all modern computer systems. So
15 we're talking about a design that's over
70 years old the key features of the von
Neumann architecture are still present 70
and and correct in your laptop,
your desktop, your tablet,
20 your smart-phone or indeed in a
supercomputer somewhere out in the world
So what we're going to do is really look 75
at what the key features of the von
Neumann architecture are and what their
25 function is. So in the
classic diagram : the memory holds
both the data and the program we also 80
have things like the control unit the
arithmetic logic unit we've got
30 input/output so we've got accumulators
we've got lots of other features. One
point to make is that when we talk about 85
computer architectures we're not talking
about its specific design for a specific
35 computer system we're talking about
something that is more abstract and that
can be applied to lots of different 90
computers as the von Neumann
architecture was so let's go through
40 some of these key points. So we can see
here we have a control unit the control
unit is responsible for decoding the 95
instructions from the program and
controlling how data moves around the
45 computer system this is why we called a
computer control unit. We have the
arithmetic logic unit or ALU and this 100
basically does all the math and logical
functions it carries out all the
50 calculations it does all the addition
and subtraction or the greater-than
less-than all really the key processing 105
that we think of when we think of a
data around a computer system and we
do this using buses. Buses are simply
the wires that carry the data around the
computer in this diagram they're denoted by
the arrows connecting the different
parts together so if you look at a
motherboard very closely you'll see the
little wires running along the
motherboard and these are the buses
that carry the data around different
systems. Then we've got the accumulator here
in the arithmetic logic unit the
accumulator is a type of register and
registers are memory locations within
the computer system that have a specific
function and we'll take a look at those
in greater detail in just a moment .
Important thing to remember is that when
we think about a modern computer system
for control unit the arithmetic logic
unit all the registers are all together
in the same microchip that we call the
CPU or central processing unit which is
a very small part of a computer system
it might be only about the size of your
thumb or a little bit bigger but it's
really the brains of the operation and
just to finish off this diagram you'll
notice that we've got little boxes for
input and output of course if you can't
input data into the computer it's not
gonna be able to do anything and
obviously once you've finished doing all
your processing and calculation that
data then needs to be output in a way
that humans can make sense of. Let's take
a look at the registers now we've got a
couple of diagrams here don't worry if
you can't make sense of them to start
with they're just examples of the types
of registers that are important in Von
Neumann architecture again for the
points of view of this lecture registers
are just memory locations with specific
purposes the main memory is
general-purpose it can hold any type of
data but registers have a specific type
of data and a specific job
so the first one is the one that we
looked at earlier the accumulator and
this is just temporary storage for the
results of calculations made by the
 arithmetic logic unit and it just saves 160 register it doesn't hold the data or the
time and effort and energy you don't instruction it holds location in memory
have to put those results back into of the data or instruction it holds the
110 memory if you're going to need them a address the memory data register on the
short time later they can be distorting other hand actually holds the data or
the accumulator while all the 165 instructions so either it's taking data
calculations are taking place. Next is or instructions from the Memory and holding
the program counter this keeps track of it in there or it's holding data may be
115 the memory location for the next the result of a calculation that's going
instruction to be dealt with by the to go back into memory .
computer the program counter then passes 170
this next instruction to what we call The von Neumann
the memory address register the MAR so architecture is called the stored
120 again it's probably something you've program computer because the program is
come across before but in the main stored in memory and this makes it a lot
memory of a computer system what we call 175 easier to change the program
RAM today all the locations have a very it needs a control unit an arithmetic
specific address a unique address in the logic unit and registers and registers
125 same way that your house has a unique are memory locations with a special
address or you have a unique telephone purpose that are used temporarily while
number or you have a unique bank account 180 the computer is running .
number the memory address register
stores the memory location for data or https://www.youtube.com/watch?
130 instructions that may need to be fetched v=ckDb_W72__c
from memory or that are going to go the
other way and are gonna get stored into
memory okay so that is the location in
memory for data instructions that you're
135 going to take from the memory or that
you're going to put back into the memory
now the memory data register or MDR this
is the register that is used to store
the data or instructions that have been
140 fetched from memory or the data that is
going to be transferred to and stored in
the memory so it's not holding the
memory location or the address it's
actually holding the data or instruction
145 itself we also have the current
instruction register and this stores the
most recently fetched instruction while
it's waiting to be coded and executed by
the computer so if the memory data
150 register pulls data from the memory
and it turns out to be an instruction
that is then passed on to the current
instruction register where it's then
processed. Now it can be a little
155 confusing when we talk about registers
especially the MAR and the MDR they're
very similar in name and the functions
are easily confused the key point here
is that the MAR is the memory address