IBM chose the Intel 8088 microprocessor and its supporting chipset as the standard CPU for its design when it was designing the first PC. As IBM’s major competitor (Apple) was using the Motorola microprocessor for its design so it was a natural decision for IBM. The microprocessors used in the vast majority of all PC-compatible [...]

Although I/O devices may be treated like memory locations, there is one big difference between the two; I/O devices generally have the capability to interrupt the microprocessor while it is executing a program. The I/O device does this by issuing an interrupt request input signal to the microprocessor. Each device in a PC-compatible system that [...]

There are typically five serviceable components on the system board. These include:

The Microprocessor
The Ram modules
The CMOS backup battery
The ROM bios IC(s)
The cache memory

Of the five items listed, three- the microprocessor, the RAM modules and the cache memory-can be exchanged to increase the performance of the system. These devices are normally mounted in sockets to make [...]