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Trace how a computer uses a program as stored instructions and treats data as the information those instructions act on. You’ll reason through why computers need exact steps and why they do only what their instructions allow.
Follow a simple action from input, through processing, to output. You’ll connect keyboards, touchscreens, sensors, screens, speakers, and printers to the same basic pattern: receive something, change or use stored information, then produce a result.
Apply the previous explanations in a guided problem.
Track how a computer’s working memory changes as instructions run. You’ll distinguish RAM as temporary working space from longer-term storage, and see how the computer’s current state is made of the values it is holding right now.
Step through how the CPU runs one instruction at a time using the fetch-decode-execute cycle. You’ll recognize the roles of the control unit, registers, program counter, and arithmetic logic unit without needing assembly language.
Check your understanding with a short quiz.
Reason through why the order of instructions matters. You’ll compare small sequences where the same actions in a different order produce different results because each step changes what the next step can use.
Trace how a computer uses rules to choose the next instruction. You’ll see how comparisons, true-or-false conditions, and jumps let a machine follow different paths or repeat work without treating “choice” as human judgment.
Connect human-friendly commands to the low-level instructions hardware can run. You’ll see how apps, operating systems, compilers, and interpreters help turn clicks or code into exact work done by the machine.
Predict what happens when instructions are incomplete, too literal, or given unexpected input. You’ll distinguish bugs, crashes, wrong outputs, and user mistakes as different ways exact instruction-following can fail.
Review this chapter with practice based on your mistakes.
