Reading and Writing Memory
The processor can do two fundamental things with in main memory:
- It can write to a byte at a given memory location.
- The previous bit pattern in that location will be destroyed.
- The new bit pattern is now saved for future use.
- It can read a byte from a given location.
- The processor gets the bit pattern stored at that location.
- The contents of that location are NOT changed.
For example, if the processor needs to get the byte stored at location 5, it can read it. It gets the byte "0110 1110" as the data it needs (but location 5 in memory does not change.)
Most processors can write (and read) more than a single byte at a time. This speeds things up. But the two operations above are fundamental. You may have heard talk about the new 64-bit processors and 128-bit processors. A 64-bit processor can read and write 64/8 = 8 bytes at a time.
