IT For the People - Week 10 - CPU

If you've worked in the industry for any amount of time you've likely heard someone describe their Personal Computer as the CPU. I would imagine a lot of this stems from the fact that for the longest time the major marketing push was how fast your CPU was. I recall being a young boy and the Pentium II came out. I recall seeing commercials for it, and how it would change the way home users would live. In truth, the CPU is just one of many components within that magic box that makes all of your digital dreams come true. A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program.

Real World Comparison:

Last week we started off with the human body analogy. I'm going to continue this trend for the next little while. If the operating system is likened to your personality and emotions, the CPU could be compared to your brain. It will take in and out all information through many different channels (scent, vision, hearing etc) and process what to do with it. If you were walking down the street and someone was walking towards you, your CPU (brain) would make the decision to move to the right to pass the person by. It will process the info available to it and command the rest of the body to take action.

Next Week: RAM (Memory)