The lowest computer language is machine code, the binary representation of instructions that are readable only by the processor. Some lower forms include assembly languages, which are symbolic representations of corresponding machine code statements. Machine code can be used as a standalone language or translated into other languages like C++.
The lowest form of computer language is assembly.
First off, it is not a “language”. It is machine code.
Secondly, there are many lower forms as new types of processors come out and obsolete older ones or have them developed into newer kinds.
Also, C++ is a higher level than assembler in most cases because it has a lot more features, but it’s not “the highest form of computer language”, as C++ is an extension of Assembly.
Memory addresses are relative to the processor itself and operating system (if any). The addresses can be calculated mathematically, which is why they are considered “relative”. That does not mean that the processor has to do math every time it accesses one of those addresses. It can do that math once and use the resulting value as a reference to that address forever after.
In fact, they don’t even have to be calculated at all; many processors (and some operating systems) use an extremely fast ‘interrupt’ system which is called each time a chip needs to read or write a memory address. The interrupt handler then calculates the reference and relays it to the chip itself.
Using this method, you can do things like set one memory location with your name (or anything) literally in 1/100000th of a second. Programs can be written that fast – some are even faster than that.
That’s not even the fastest type of memory access; I think if you install a memory cache into your CPU, you could have the equivalent of 100-1000 MHz RAM.
(Not that I’d want to – at those speeds, they would probably automatically start displaying graphics and stuff). Nowadays people are working on processors that will run at speeds like 100GHz.
A real-world example of this is the Radeon X1800 series from ATI, which can access memory at 352GBps – around 1000 times faster than a Pentium 4 processor running at 3.4 GHz.
That’s 10 bits per second – that would take you 5000 years to read 1 MB of data.
The speed of processors is measured in gigahertz (that’s 1000MHz). A 4GHz processor is a model that has it’s clock running at exactly four billion cycles per second. That means you could get access to memory no faster than 5 nanoseconds – that’s 1/200th of a millisecond or 2,000 times slower than the Radeon X1800 mentioned above.
The graphics card is just so powerful that it has to run at a much higher speed to keep up.
I’ve overclocked my computer before – I made my processor run at 3GHz instead of the standard 2.4 GHz, but in order to do that I had to actually modify the processor to run at a higher speed. I also had to install a brand new fan in my computer, because the old one ran too slow to keep it cool at 3GHz.
You can buy ‘Video Cards’ for your computer that are like the Radeon X1800 – they’re called “GeForce” cards (which is not an acronym – it’s just named after the founder of Nvidia) and they are much more powerful than an ATI Radeon. For example, the fastest GeForce card is a GeForce 7800 GTX card which runs at 672MHz and can access memory up to 1047MB/s.
(I wonder if anyone will ever create a 672 MILLION MHz processor… things would get pretty weird).
If you have a hard drive that’s 100GB, and your processor reads 1047MB/s, it will take you 0.064 seconds to read the entire contents of your hard drive. That’s faster than any single CD-ROM ever made! It’d be like downloading an MP3 file from the Internet, watching it play once, then deleting it.
(My computer can’t do that yet, but I think in a few years they’ll make computers fast enough to do stuff like that).
That’s not how RAM is measured either; hardware makers are now making memory chips with multiple times more capacity than what it says on the box. You can buy a 1GB memory stick that actually has 2,000x the capacity – they’re called DDR RAM.
Using this technology, you can easily make a computer that’s way more powerful than what we have today without having to use any new materials or ultra-advanced manufacturing methods (don’t get me wrong – I’m sure designers are using the latest in high-end manufacturing technology).
It seems like it has something to do with how DDR2 memory is constructed, I don’t know exactly – but you can also buy RAM that gives what’s called ‘double data rate’ which causes them to read and write twice as fast. This means my new stick of 1GB DDR2 memory is actually reading and writing at 2GB/s.
So if my processor reads 1047MB/s, that means you could read a DVD-ROM in about 3 minutes!
They’re also making DDR3 RAM which is even faster than that – the fastest one being made right now runs at 1GHz (1000MHz) and can access memory at up to 12.8GB/s – a standard hard drive is only 5400 RPM which runs at 100MB/s, so if we use the ATI Radeon X1800 as an example from before with 352GBps memory access speed, it would take 1 second to copy the entire contents of your hard drive to RAM.
(That’s a little scary actually – it’d take just seconds for someone to completely wipe you).
I think they’re making DDR4 RAM soon which will be even faster – but right now, the fastest memory I can buy is DDR2-800 which runs at 800MHz and gives a bandwidth of 8GB/s.
there, which runs at 100GB/s.
And I’m guessing that there will be computers out there in the future that have speeds greater than my computer!
I’ll bet they’re going to look a lot different from what we have today though. Most likely, it won’t even need a monitor and keyboard – you’ll just download software off the Internet, and it’ll be able to play movies on a screen you can’t even see.
There is so much stuff that I still don’t understand about computers – but at least for now, there are people who make them with technology that’s advanced enough to be out of my reach!
The lowest form of computer language is a BASIC programming language. BASIC was designed in 1964 for non-science students and it has evolved into many different versions of BASIC. Some of the most popular variations are Visual Basic and Visual Basic .NET, which are programming languages that can be used to create applications. BASIC is the first step for people who want to learn how to make their own computer programs, because it teaches them the most important parts of a computer language without having to continuously study math or science.
One advantage of using basic as opposed to other computer languages is that it combines letters and numbers, which are part of English. This makes learning BASIC easy as kids can use it to make games and puzzles like Hangman or Tic-Tac-Toe.
The disadvantage of BASIC is that the commands are very simple, so advanced programmers cannot use BASIC for complex projects. Also, BASIC is not as popular as other languages in the business world, so it can be more difficult to find a job using BASIC. However, BASIC is a great language for beginners and all users should know some programming when interacting with computers or any type of software applications.