How memory is stored on a computer

Memory is used to store both programs and data instructions. Program instructions are coded data which tell the computer to do something, represented by the binary code (1’s and 0’s). Data is simply information to be used by the program, i.e. two numbers to be added together. A central processing unit (CPU) gets instructions and/or data from memory, decodes the instructions, and performs a sequence of programmed tasks. We need something to decode the memory and determine what represents instructions and what represents data; this is the CPU’s purpose. The CPU acts as the brain of the computer. It can not think on its own though, it can only perform tasks programmed on the computer.
First the computer must fetch the instructions from the memory. Then it has to decode the instruction. Finally it performs the indicated operations. These tasks can be performed by using...