Feel free to move this topic.I just had no idea where to put something like this.

I'm actually in the process of studying for the A+ certification exams.Is there anyone on here that has their A+?I'm looking for either a study buddy or someone who is knowledgeable of what the test consists of.I have 2 books

CompTIA A+ Certification All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies

CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Sixth Edition (Hardcover)
By Michael Meyers

Which one would you recommend?

What type of jobs could I apply for after I get certified?

Hi Leopreponderance,

Welcome to Tech-101 .

I did my A+ a few months back now and was no walk in the park but its rewarding at the end. Its not got me anywhere by itself but along with other qualifications it backs them up.
I'm afraid its a big misconception that an A+ exam will get you a job, it just never works like that unless someone has some evidence of it happening.

The books you have seem good. I absolutely loath the "...for Dummies" series of books because more of then than not are made to look thicker with far more than you need to know.
I would say go through with a book and PC and make sure you know how to do which exercises and how they are carried out. There is also a bit on helping the customer where you look at working practices and what would be correct.

If you need any help just pop back and I'll do my best...

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Hi there. I'm a profession software developer and when interviewing new hires,
we gave no consideration to these certifications. Once upon a time, experience alone would trump these certs, but today, at least in software, we always require a degree (sigh). In my book, even that doesn't say much about the art of programming.

Good luck -- the job market is really down in S. Calif.

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J. O. Beard; you + tech-101.com => synergism. Secure your system now

I sent you a message JoBeard.

welcome. i am also tyrying to prepare for the a+exams but due to current job outlook and my current employment , i am in no hurry to try a career change at the time. feel free to contact me if you would like to share some of our study materials. i have a few books and have also registered on some websites that have study material.

I need help with a particular topic.I'm in the processs of reading CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Sixth Edition (Hardcover)
By Michael Meyers

I'm on pg.63 where it talks about sending a series of commands to the central processing unit (CPU).How the hell do I do that?

Keep in mind I never took nor studied for the A+ so this may or may not be what you are talking about...

Maybe if you are more specific about what it's asking, I could give a more specific answer. Here is what I assume it's talking about.

You could use AUTOEXEC.BAT => it's a file containing all DOS commands that you want to run at startup

Or, if they are just talking about using the command line, you are going to have to be more specific in what commands you want to send. The basic syntax looks like [command] [target] [switches] . For additional help with the commands typeHelp into the command prompt.

I'll give you an example of some basic command line stuff:

1) Go to the command prompt by holding the windows key + r -> type cmd and hit enter.

2) From the promt type CD\ that will change you to the root directory. If you type CD.. that would take you up just one level instead of all the way to the root.

3) Now that you are at the root type md newtest and hit enter

4) now type dir /p hit enter this will show the directory structure one page at a time. You should see we created the directory c:\newtest

5) Now to remove it we could use rd newtest, but if the directory had sub-directories or files this would not work. So let pretend it has some files in it and we want to remove the directory and files. There's two commands that should work DEL [Directory Name] or DELTREE [Directory Name]. So type DEL newtest and hit enter.

It should return with
c:\newtest\*,Are you sure <Y/N>?

So type Y and hit enter

6) Now type dir /p again and notice the directory c:\newtest no longer exist, any files or sub-directories would also be removed using this method.
====================================

Now, that's just the basics obviously. Remember I mentioned you could use AUTOEXEC.BAT

From the command prompt type:
edit c:\autoexec.bat

or

edit c:\config.sys

After windows 95 though they included a utility for this...

Hold the windows key + r, type sysedit

You can see some various windows files in an editor.
=============================
Command Files
Something a bit more simple...

Say you want to stop and remove a service from running on the machine.

You could paste that into Notepad. Save it as service.cmd and Save type All Files. Then double click on the file.

It will stop the service, delete the service, then delete the service.cmd file you just made, then exit the command line.

=============================

If they are looking for something different I apologize.

In my opinion all these are sending commands to the cpu

The only other thing I was thinking it might be referring to was BIOS - controlling cpu fan speed ect. But the more I thought about it, the more I figured they are referring to windows.

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'series of commands to the CPU'

hmm; that's a very context sensitive question. The *.BAT solution is under the category of 'scripting languages', eg Perl, PHP, JS, bash, csh, sh, ... and on it goes.

But scripting is sending a series of commands to a command interpreter, not the CPU per se.

The CPU fetches 'chunks' of RAM and then starts to process them in sequence. The size of the CHUCK is architecture dependent and can be any thing from four bytes to 128 bytes or more on a mainframe.

The 'chunk' is prefetched into a cache and then each instruction is
a) setup for execution
b) possible jump locations calculated
c) and then 'sent to the CPU' for execution.

The higher the difference in RAM speed and Cache speed make the size of the 'chunk' more important. If the cache is depleted and the cpu needs more instructions to process, the CPU goes into a WAIT until more instructions are available for processing. The goal is to NEVER WAIT the CPU, but that can be impractical; consider:
a) fetch 128 words from ram
b) calculate the branch targets
c) execute the instruction,
d) only to discover that the BRANCH target is outside the cache
only choice is to WAIT the CPU, fetch another 'chunk' of ram and then
resume at b)

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J. O. Beard; you + tech-101.com => synergism. Secure your system now

I don't remember having to do that at all!

I took my A+ exam in Software and Hardware over two years ago and can't remember having to do anything like that. If you're competent on the Windows operating system, you should be half way to passing your software side of things.

The hardware exam was in my eyes, fairly easier, obviously if you know what you're looking at inside of the computer.

I was under the illusion that with my A+ I could pretty much conquer the world, but you don't see many job adverts specifically asking for this as a minimum requirement. Don't let that get you down or dishearten you as any qualification shows you're willing to further yourself and will look great to employers.

It says to tell the cpu to add 2+3.

"To do this you must send a series of commands to the CPU- The CPU will act on each command,eventually giving you an answer.Refer to codebook in figure 3-6 to translate the instructions you're giving the 'Man in the box' into binary commands."

1.Place 10000000 on the external data bus (EDB)
2.Place 00000010 on the EDb
3.Place 10010000 on the EDB
4.Place 00000011 on the EDB
5.Place 10110000 on the EDB
6.Place 11000000 on the EDB

When you finish step 6 the value on the edb will 00000101,the decimal number 5 written in the binary.


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