Simplified Windows Architecture Overview
A simplified overview of the Windows operating system architecture divides it into user-mode and kernel-mode components. More ...
Operating System Process Control Block
An Operating System Process is a program in execution. It includes the value in the program counter and in the processors registers. A process also includes a stack, data section, and a heap. Although two processes may be associated with the same program, they are considered two separate execution sequences. More ...
Operating System Memory Allocation Methods
Operating System Memory Allocation is the process of assigning blocks of main memory to various running processes and to move processes back and forward between the main memory and disk. More ...
CPU Chip Packaging
Over the development time of the computer, several different designs of packaging for the CPU chip die have been used. Each type of packaging has its advantages and disadvantages. This article reviews some common packages that might still be in use. More ...
Expanding the Resources of Microcontrollers
In some cases it is possible that the internal resources of a microcontroller are insufficient. The solution to these situations is to add external components by creating an expanded microcontroller structure. More ...
Capacitors in AC Circuits
In an AC circuit capacitors exhibit a property similar to resistance called reactance and cause a phase shift between votage and current. The vector sum of resistance and reactance in an AC circuit is called impedance. More ...
Priority CPU Scheduling Algorithm
CPU Scheduling deals with the problem of deciding which of the processes in the ready queue is to be alocated the CPU. There are many different CPU scheduling algorithms. In this article we describe priority CPU scheduling. More ...
Digital to Analog Convertion with a Microcontroller
Digital to analog conversion (DAC) is the process by which a digital signal (expressed as a string of 1s and 0s) are converted to an analog signal (a continuously varying voltage). More ...
The Microcontroller's Asynchronous Serial Interface
An Asynchronous Serial Interface sends data one bit at a time, as apposed to a parallel interface which send one byte or one word at a time, and asynchronous means it sends them when its ready, without reference to a clock signal. More ...
Stored Program Architecture
Almost every computer system ever made is based on the stored program architecture designed in 1945 design by the mathematician John Von Neumann. He described a system where data and instructions would be stored in memory. More ...
The AMD Athlon 64 Processor
AMD's Athlon 64 processor, released in September 2003, was their first 64-bit processor targeted for the workstation market to compete with Intel's Pentium 4. AMD's first 64-bit processor was the Opteron, released earlier in April that same year, targeted for the server market to compete with Intel's Xeon processor. More ...
Operating System Boot
The procedure of starting a computer by loading the kernel is known as booting the system. On most computer systems, a small piece of code known as the bootstrap program or bootstrap loader locates the kernel loads it into main memory, and starts its execution. More ...