Also called the central processing unit (CPU). It's an electronic device that contains millions of tiny components designed for basic arithmetic and control functions. A CPU can add or subtract numbers, move numbers from one location to another, or control an external device. This is enough to do everything you see on your screen. Each of the actions of a CPU is controlled by an instruction. These are the machine-code used to create software programs. A CPU's speed (for example, 66MHz), roughly defines the number of instructions that it can process each second - 66 million in this case. The power of a CPU is also defined in its data-handling capabilities. A 32-bit CPU can add, subtract or manipulate numbers that are 32 bits wide. A 16-bit processor can only handle 16-bit numbers.
