Computer Architecture and Principles: POS and ATM Systems Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of computer architecture, focusing on two contemporary commercial systems: Point of Sale (POS) systems and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). It begins with an introduction to computer architecture, defining key components such as the processor, memory, and I/O devices. The report then describes the selected systems, detailing their hardware and software components. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to mapping the components of the POS and ATM systems to the von Neumann architecture. The report further analyzes and compares the designs of the two systems, including performance metrics, cost, and energy consumption. It delves into specific design aspects, such as processor chip organization, instruction set architecture (CISC and RISC), internal processor structure, cache architecture, interconnection architecture, memory management, and I/O modules. The report also touches on the support for parallel processing and speculates on future trends in computer system design. The analysis covers various aspects including the architecture of the processor chips, instruction set architecture, internal structure, cache organization, interconnection architecture, and I/O modules. The report concludes with a discussion on parallel processing and future trends in computer system design.

1Computer Architecture and Principles
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND PRINCIPLES
By (Student names)
[Course Name]
[Lecture Name]
[University Name]
[City where the university is located]
[Date]

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
The chosen Contemporary commercial computer systems........................................................................4
Mapping components to main building block.............................................................................................7
Research analysis and comparison of designs of the computer systems....................................................9
Explaining design aspects which includes:.................................................................................................10
Organization of the processor chip(s)....................................................................................................10
Instruction Set Architecture..................................................................................................................11
Internal Structure of the processor.......................................................................................................11
Cache Architecture and Organization....................................................................................................13
Interconnection Architecture.................................................................................................................14
Memory Management............................................................................................................................15
Input/Out modules used.......................................................................................................................16
Chose instruction set.................................................................................................................................17
An assembly language...............................................................................................................................17
Describing how parallel processing is supported by these systems..........................................................18
How Request-level parallelism could be adopted......................................................................................18
Prediction of the future trend of the design of computer systems..............................................................18
Reference...................................................................................................................................................19

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Introduction
In the field of computer engineering the computer architecture refers to the various rules and
methods that are set in order to give description of the system functions, organizations, and
implementations of the entire computer system, below are the various components and their
functions respectively.
i. The processor:
This is the computer system component that is responsible of the execution of the programs
through the arithmetic and logical operation of the entered data.
ii. Memory.
The memory in a computer system represents a passive component that is used in the storage of
the information which waits to be requested by any other part of the system.
iii. Input/output (I/O) devices.
It is used in transferring of the information without any alteration between the external entity and
the internal devices for example keyboard, mouse and video display.
iv. Communication devices/channels.
This is used to tie the entire system together where either using simple link to connect devices or
using complex switch to interconnect various components which allows the communication
between them at particular times.
The chosen Contemporary commercial computer systems
The selected computer systems include the point of sale system and the automated teller machine
as described here below:
i. Point of sale system (POS):
The point of sale system is a commercial system that is used for selling products and it is made
of the combination of hardware and software that are built in order to do centralization of
business operations.

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The point of sale is made of various components which are connected together to make the
whole system the below are the various components of the point of sale system.
i. Point of sale hardware.
This is the hardware that is connected to the other peripheral devices and in which the point of
sale system software and operating system is installed.
ii. Point of sale computers.
This is the main part of the point of sale system that comprises of the Central processing unit
(CPU) that mainly runs the software.
iii. The cash drawer.
This is a very essential part section of point of sale system where various items such as the
money, credit cards receipt and the papers records are stored.
iv. Customer poles display.
This is a section of the point of sale system which is a lighted display that is used to view the
total transactions, total of tendered amount and some advertisements messages displayed to the
customers.
v. Point of sale monitors.
This is flat panel LCD monitors or CRT monitors that are used by the sellers to display the
transactions to the sellers of the products.
vi. Point of sale touch screen.
This is a type of screen that provides display to the system users and it allows the easy
interactions with the system and helps in minimizing the space used.
vii. The keyboards.

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This is a primary level interface of the point of sale and they are made of various types which
have different functionalities and their selection depends on the sizes, programmable keys
requirement and the magnetic stripes reader’s functionalities.
viii. The scanners.
This is a device that is hand-held and is used to scan the products details, the details are recorded
in the barcodes which are made of series of lines and the scanner used is called barcode scanner.
ix. Signature captures device.
This is magnetic strip that is attached to the keyboard and it is used in capturing the customer’s
signatures and its use helps in streamlining the business transaction which eventually reduces the
cost and errors which can be caused by the use of paper works.
x. Receipts printers.
This is another device used in the point of sale system to print the receipts and this is used in
printing of the records of various customers transactions, this type of printer is manly the serial
dot matrix printer since is cheap and easy to install.
ii. Automated teller machine system (ATM):
The automated teller machine is another commercial system which is an electronic
telecommunication device that allows the financial institution customers to perform various
transactions which includes the withdrawing, depositing, transferring funds and receiving the
customer’s accounts information at a particular time without involvement of the banks staffs.
The automated teller machine is made of combination of various devices which includes the
following:
i. The central processing unit (CPU.
ii. The Magnetic/Chip card reader.
iii. The PIN Pad.
iv. A Secure crypto processor.
v. The Display.

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vi. The Function key buttons / Touch screen.
vii. The record Printer.
viii. The Vault.
Mapping components to main building block
The von Neumann architecture shows how the computer system is divided into the various
blocks and each block has its functionality as discussed below.
i. Input devices: These are the peripheral devices that are used capture the details from the
computer system users to the computer memory.
ii. Central processing unit: This is the part of the system that is used perform some
arithmetic and functions using the entered data or the current information to generate
more information.
iii. Memory: The memory is a part that stores the information either permanently or
temporarily and that information is used or requested by the processor to perform some
processes.
iv. Output devices: These are the devices that are used to display the information that is
processed in the system or the one that is being keyed in the computer memory using the
input devices like the keyboard and scanners.
Below shows the mapping of the various selected system devices to the von Neumann
architecture system.
i. Point of sale system.
Von Neumann Mapped System devices explanation

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architecture
Input devices i. Point of sale touch
screen
ii. The keyboards
iii. The scanners
iv. Signature captures
device
These are the devices that are used by the
sellers to key in the information.
Central processing
unit
i. Point of sale
computers.
This is where various arithmetic and logical
transactions are done.
Memory unit i. The cash drawer
ii. Point of sale
hardware
These are the devices where the information
and data is stored and retrieved.
Output devices i. Customer poles
display
ii. Point of sale
monitors
iii. Receipts printers
These are the devices that are used to
display the information to the sellers.
ii. Automated teller machine system.
Von Neumann
architecture
Mapped System devices explanation
Input devices i. The PIN Pad
ii. The Function key buttons /
Touch screen
These are used by users to key in the
required data.
Central processing
unit
i. The central processing unit
(CPU)
ii. A Secure crypto processor
These are the devices that are used to
process the data..
Memory unit i. The Magnetic/Chip card
reader
ii. The Vault
These are the devices that store the
information about the customer.
Output devices i. The Display
ii. The record Printer
These displays the information to the
customers
Research analysis and comparison of designs of the computer systems
The two selected commercial system are slightly different from each other, this is in terms of their
functions, structure, performance, cost and energy consumption as describe in the table below.
System name Performance Cost Energy

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consumption
Point of sale
system
The point of sale performance is moderately high has
improved on the sales speed and record management
below are measuring attributes.
i. Average Queue length- 10
ii. Average Waiting time – 3 minutes
$550 1,300 watts
per day.
Automated
teller machine
The automated teller machine performance is high and
has improved on the service delivery to the customer,
as attested by attributes below.
iii. Average Queue length- 20
iv. Average Waiting time – 5 minutes
$1,200 2,500 watts
per day.
Explaining design aspects which includes:
Organization of the processor chip(s)
i. Point of sale system.
The processor chip of the point of sale system, the processor is made of various sections which
include the registers, control units, the clock, the bus and program counters as in the figure
below.
ii. Automated teller machine system.

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The automated teller machine processor chip is made of various components which include
control unit and the arithmetic logic unit which do the computations and the arithmetic
operations as in the figure below.
Instruction Set Architecture.
i. Point of sale system.
The point of sale has instruction set architecture which is termed as the Complex Instruction Set
Computer architecture(CISC) where it make use of less number of lines of assembly codes which
performs multiple steps in many clock’s cycles and thus enabling the compilation of higher level
language (Wixom, 2016).
ii. The automated teller machine system.
The ATM system has a instruction set architecture which is referred to as Reduced Instruction
Set Computer architecture (RISC) where basic instructions are executed in an independent
manner in completion of a task. This instruction set make use of multiple lines of codes where
the operations get executed with equal number of clock cycles as in the CISC instructions but
less number of registers are required.
Internal Structure of the processor
i. Point of sale system.

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The above shows the internal structure of the point of sale processor and it is made of various
components which includes the following:
a. Control unit: It is used in controlling of the processes.
b. Arithmetic logic unit: It helps in the performing of the arithmetic operations.
c. Registers: It is use to hold data from the processor to the RAM and data from the RAM to
the processor temporarily to enable efficient execution.
d. Internal data bus: It is used for the interconnection of the internal components of the
computer to the computer motherboards.
e. External data path: It is used for fetching the data from the computer memory to the
computer processors.
f. Address line: For specification of the exact data location in the computer memory.
ii. Automated teller machine system.

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The above shows the internal structure of the automated teller machine processor and it is made
of various components just like the point of sale processor which includes the following:
a. Control unit: It is used in controlling of the processes.
b. Arithmetic logic unit: It helps in the performing of the arithmetic operations.
c. Registers: It is use to hold data from the processor to the RAM and data from the RAM to
the processor temporarily to enable efficient execution (Singh, 2016).
d. Internal data bus: It is used for the interconnection of the internal components of the
computer to the computer motherboards.
e. External data path: It is used for fetching the data from the computer memory to the
computer processors.
f. Address line: For specification of the exact data location in the computer memory.
Cache Architecture and Organization
a. Point of sale system

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The figure above shows the architectural organization of cache memory in the point of sale
computer system, however in point of sale system the cache is located next to the processor since
it stores the required information by the processor temporarily in order to improve efficiency in
the data processing.
b. Automated teller machine system.
The figure above shows the architectural organization of cache memory in the Automated teller
machine computer system however in Automated teller machine system the cache is located next
to the processor since it stores the required information by the processor temporarily in order to
improve efficiency in the data processing (Laplante, 2013).