[LMG S5] Issue 59: Meltdown
Previously: The CPU comprises different types of execution units. All the execution units can run at the same time, but they may execute instructions over...
[LMG S5] Issue 58: CPU Optimisation Part 1 – Out-of-Order Processing
Previously: The CPU stores data for ready access in the CPU cache. Accessing data from the CPU cache is much faster than accessing data from main memory....
[LMG S5] Issue 57: Cache, the CPU’s working space
Previously: The operating system is responsible for listing and managing the computer’s resources, making them available to programs running on the computer,...
[LMG S5] Issue 56: Operating Systems and resource management
Previously: The CPU just executes instruction after instruction after instruction. Each instruction may consist of loading data from a memory location,...
[LMG S5] Issue 55: Addressing memory
Previously: To get useful output from a CPU, we must translate the operations we want it to perform into CPU instructions, in a process known as compiling....
[LMG S5] Issue 54: Compiling programming code into CPU instructions
Previously: CPUs are unconscious slaves that simply execute instruction after instruction, at a very fast rate. Last issue, I introduced the idea of the CPU...
[LMG S5] Issue 53: The CPU is an instruction-obeying slave
Previously: PDF’s markup language is more concerned with how things appear on the page than with what they were originally. Once the PDF is generated, it is...
[LMG S4] Issue 52: PDFs part 2 – Text and images
Previously: PDF is the gold standard for universal compatibility (supported by most software and platforms) and visual fidelity (displays exactly the same...
![[LMG S4] Issue 51: PDFs part 1 – Compatibility and fidelity](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ngjunsiang/laymansguide/release/season4/issue051/issue051_01.png)
[LMG S4] Issue 51: PDFs part 1 – Compatibility and fidelity
Previously: An HTML file contains markup tags that tell the browser how to interpret and format the text within the tags. Other document formats usually use...
![[LMG S4] Issue 50: Complex file formats and the Document](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ngjunsiang/laymansguide/release/season4/issue050/issue050_01.png)
[LMG S4] Issue 50: Complex file formats and the Document
Previously: A file consists of data, preceded by a file header which describes the data. Software (including operating systems) detect the kind of data...
![[LMG S4] Issue 49: What is a File?](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ngjunsiang/laymansguide/release/season4/issue049/issue049_01.png)
[LMG S4] Issue 49: What is a File?
Previously: A video container can hold one or more audio, video, or text data streams. To encode or decode a data stream, you need to have the necessary...
![[LMG S4] Issue 48: Of containers and codecs](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ngjunsiang/laymansguide/release/season4/issue048/issue048_01.png)
[LMG S4] Issue 48: Of containers and codecs
Previously: Data cannot be compressed beyond its predictability limit in a lossless fashion. Lossless compression does not discard any information. It spots...
![[LMG S4] Issue 47: Lossless compression](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ngjunsiang/laymansguide/release/season4/issue047/issue047_01.png)
[LMG S4] Issue 47: Lossless compression
Previously: Computers compress image and audio data through a process similar to summarising: it analyses the data using algorithms that use brightness and...
![[LMG S4] Issue 46: Lossy compression](https://github.com/ngjunsiang/laymansguide/blob/release/season4/issue046/issue046_01.jpg?raw=true)
[LMG S4] Issue 46: Lossy compression
Previously: Humans can distinguish 120 dB of loudness, which means the loudest perceivable sound is a million times louder than the softest perceivable...
![[LMG S4] Issue 45: Audio, a sampling of values](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ngjunsiang/laymansguide/release/season4/issue045/issue045_01.png)
[LMG S4] Issue 45: Audio, a sampling of values
Previously: An image’s resolution describes its dimensions. Its pixel resolution gives an indication of its physical size (if printed or displayed on a...
[LMG S4] Issue 44: Image resolution
Previously: Colour is stored as a combination of red, green, and blue. In a computer system, each colour is stored as one byte (8 bits), allowing for 256...
![[LMG S4] Issue 43: Images, a mosaic of 3 colours](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ngjunsiang/laymansguide/release/season4/issue043/issue043_01.png)
[LMG S4] Issue 43: Images, a mosaic of 3 colours
Previously: Unicode is an encoding format which is meant to support every language, ever. Most websites, apps, and interfaces support it today. In the last...
TYPO for [LMG S4] Issue 42: Unicode, computers go international
I made a typo this issue, right after the issue summary. It is below: But people need to know that it is not possible, and actually easy, to represent...
![[LMG S4] Issue 42: Unicode, computers go international](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Latin-1-infobox.svg/800px-Latin-1-infobox.svg.png)
[LMG S4] Issue 42: Unicode, computers go international
Previously: In ASCII encoding, text is stored as a 7-bit sequence. Text consists of letters, numbers, symbols, and control codes. Control codes instruct the...
![[LMG S4] Issue 41: ASCII, the typewriter digitised](https://github.com/ngjunsiang/laymansguide/blob/release/season4/issue041/issue041_01.jpg?raw=true)
[LMG S4] Issue 41: ASCII, the typewriter digitised
Previously: 8 bits comprise 1 byte. Humans count bytes in multiples of thousands, while computers count bytes in multiples of 1,024. It’s still difficult to...