Notes
Computational Thinking for Problem Solving
Week 3

Topics

History of the Computer

  • The computer's evolution is contributed by various mathematicians and scientists

von Neumann Architecture

  • von Neumann Architecture is the architecture of modern computers nowadays
  • writing_to_memory.png
  • reading_to_memory.png
  • When using computational thinking, it is important to know what the computer's capability
  • Central Processing Unit contains Control unit and Arithmetic Logic unit

von Neumann Architecture Data

  • Computer operator used to manipulate the data of each address physically
    • From electric connector to punch card, and even mini computers
  • Modern computers have so many addresses that it is impossible to manually do it anymore, so we use variables to represent the address of values
  • The lecture used a good analogy, which is we will not tell the cab driver to go to what address, instead, we will tell them the building's name so they will bring us there
  • It is also true for how modern computers works, by inputting the variable name, CPU will decode the input to actual address and execute the command on memory
  • Collection
    • A series of data with order (List in Python)
  • Object
    • A set of data with nested data (Dictionary in Python)
  • Assembly Language
    • Remember you have an OUTPUT slot, after doing certain operations such as ADD, SUB, it is your freedom whether to WRITE it
    • Some CPU will have many registers, we only used two for simplicity's sake in the exercises

von Neumann Architecture Control Flow

  • Program instructions are executed in sequential order (typically)
  • Conditional Execution
    • if else in programming language
  • Loop

Pseudocode

  • Human readable, otherwise for computer
  • No standard syntax, but there are some conventions
  • Use <- to assign value to variables

Remarks

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