The Power Button is pressed and the CPU is

activated.
The ‘Power’
button of the
PC is pressed

The CPU begins its Fetch Execute Cycle,

fetching instructions from fixed memory.

The CPU

This is a fixed memory and can’t be edited. It

contains the instructions to get the computer
ROM started up. The CPU reads the instructions,
(read only decodes and executes them.
memory)

The instructions fetched and decoded by the

ROM tell the computer to execute the ‘Boot
Sequence’ which gets the computer up and
Boot running. There are so many fetch execute
Sequence
cycles reading, decoding and executing
instructions from the ROM, that we barely
notice it happening.
The final part of the Boot Sequence is to read,
decode and execute instructions from the
Operating System software.
Operating
System

When the CPU has finished reading the

RAM instructions for the Boot Sequence from ROM,
(random it then begins the look into the Random Access
access Memory. This contains the instructions for the
memory) programs that you may randomly access when
using the computer.

As you choose your program to use, the CPU

fetches, decodes and executes the instructions
Desktop – of your chosen program from where they are
application stored in the RAM. It continues this cycle as
software
you interact with the program you’ve selected.
programs