Wikipedia defines the fetch-execute cycle as “the process by which a computer retrieves a program instruction from its memory, determines what actions the instruction requires, and carries out those actions”. This is something that each of us does every single day – we must figure out what we need to do, figure out how to do it, and then carry out the action.
Hope college students lead busy lives – we are involved in many classes, as well as various clubs, sports, student organizations, and on- and off-campus jobs. This can be overwhelming, but, thankfully, we can often multi-task, like a computer with several pipelines. We can think of several tasks we must accomplish, process what we need to do to achieve them, and use that wonderfully complex computing center called the brain to execute more than one activity at once. This can range from a simple combination like listening to music while cooking, to a more complicated task like reading a textbook while walking to class (and still managing to avoid other people on the sidewalk and cars at street-crossings). While not so long ago it was impressive that computers were starting to be built with multiple cores, I think we take it for granted that all of us have the ability multitask in our daily lives!
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