Understanding your Computer Memory and CPU

To be able to effectively program with low level programming languages such as assembly, it is important to understand how computers structure memory, and how data is processed by the CPU. Most modern computers work off what is referred to as Von Neumann architecture. In this type of architecture, the computer is divided up into two main components, memory, and the CPU. Data is read out of the memory, processed by the CPU, and stored back in memory.

Von Neumann Architecture Diagram