The Digital Research Initiative
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Computer Chips: CPU, RAM, and ROM

The CPU is the CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT.

It resides on one or more chips inside the computer. Each chip is a grid of silicon wires encased in a plastic container about the size of a fingernail. Although there are other chips involved and this is an oversimplification, it works well to think of the CPU as the CENTRAL component of your system. It functions the way your brain functions, coordinating the activities of the other devices.

Other chips along with the CPU are RAM chips and ROM chips. RAM chips are always blank when the electricity is off.

When you start up a computer and begin to work, the information you type as well as the program that is in process all fit inside of RAM. When people refer to a 64K computer or 128K computer, they are referring to the size of the RAM capacity. RAM stands for RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY. On an Apple II computer, some software packages require 128K and not just 64K in order to work properly, because the program takes up a lot of room. On the GS, some software requires 1000K to 1250K of RAM. On the IBM, it is common for some packages to require 640K to 10 meg of RAM. On the MAC a lot of the current software requires anywhere from 1 to 10 meg of RAM.

ROM chips are crucial to the computer, but not very interesting to you as the consumer.

A ROM chip typically contains frozen information that the manufacturer wants accessible at all times, independent of disks. This might be word processing, BASIC or general screen codes. On the Apple II, BASIC is built into ROM so that if you turn on an Apple II without a disk, the machine understands BASIC . On the old ADAM computer by Coleco, word processing was frozen into ROM so it was automatically capable of word processing when you turned it on. ROM stands for READ ONLY MEMORY.


The information above was reproduced from Steve Bergen and Lynne Schalman's COMPUTER HARDWARE OVERVIEW only for academic discussion, evaluation, research and complies with the copyright law of the United States as defined and stipulated under Title 17 U. S. Code.

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