TINFO320 Midterm 1

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Define word size? What are the advantages and disadvantages of increasing word size?

Word size is the number of bits the CPU processes simultaneously. It also describes the size of a single register. If the data to be processed is in larger units than the CPU's word size, the CPU must execute multiple instructions to perform what's logically a single operation. In addition, inefficiencies are compounded as the operation's complexity increases. Therefore, increasing word size increases the capability to process larger units of data. The disadvantages of increased word size are increased CPU, bus, and memory complexity and, therefore, cost. This complexity increases at a faster rate than the increase in word size. (That is, doubling word size more than doubles complexity.)

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Describe serial, random, and parallel access. What types of storage devices use each method? Describe the factors that contribute to a disk drive's average access time. Which of these factors are improved if spin rate is increased? Which are improved if areal density is increased? Describe the operation of a MOVE instruction. Why is the name "move" a misnomer? Excess Notation How does multiprocessing improve a computer's efficiency? In what ways does system software make developing application software easier? Shortcomings of mechanical computation did the introduction of electronic computing devices address what are registers? what are their functions? What are special purpose registers? Give three examples of special purpose registers and explain how each is used.

Serial access reads or writes data units in sequential order. Magnetic tape is the only widely used form of serial access storage. Random access can "jump" directly between two noncontinuous data units. All primary storage and disk storage devices use random access. Parallel access reads or writes portions of a data item in parallel on separate storage devices or media. RAM can be considered a parallel access device. Disk average access time is a combination of rotational delay, track-to-track seek time (head movement), and head-to-head switching time. Rotational delay is reduced if spin rate is increased. If areal density is increased, TTT seek time is improved because tracks are narrower and packed together more tightly (more tracks per same unit of distance traveled by the read/write head).

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copies data from one memory location or register to another. The term "move" is a misnomer because data values in the source location aren't removed. They're tested, and copies of these values are placed in the destination location. Therefore, a move operation is really a copy operation. fixed left most bit represent signed integers. 0: +, 1:-. In short, it enables a computer to perform multiple processing tasks in parallel. Parallelism can be applied to instructions or instruction sequences in a single program or multiple programs, and the result is that more work is accomplished in the same time period. System software consists of utility program designed to be general in nature. Allocates computer resources for application software. Difference engine: Charles Babbage, 1821

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Internal storage locations in CPU. hold a single instruction or data item. (temporary) CPU designer designates the content and use of special-purpose registers. Their content is controlled by the control unit and can't be accessed directly by programs. Three types of special-purpose registers are the instruction register, instruction pointer, and program status word. When the control unit fetches an instruction from memory, it stores it in the instruction register. The instruction pointer stores the address of the next instruction the control unit retrieves at the start of the next fetch cycle. The program status word contains data describing the CPU status and the currently executing program. Binary: 0,1. Octal: base-8: from 0-7. Hexadecimal: base-16: from 0-9, A, B, C, D, E, F.

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What are the binary, octal, and hexadecimal representations of the decimal number 10.

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What are the differences between ASCII and UNICODE What are the differences between primary and secondary storage? What are the differences between static and dynamic RAM? What characteristics differentiate application software and system software? What characteristics of the CPU and of the system bus should be balanced to achieve maximum system performance? What factor(s) account for the dramatic improvements in microprocessor clock rates over the last three decades? What factor(s) limit the speed of an electrically based processing device?

ASCII is 7-bit format while UNICODE is 16-bit format. ASCII is English-base, latin-1 (ASCII 8-bit) has 128 entries multinational characters while UNICODE can represent written text from all modern languages. Primary: volatility (can't retain data indefinitely, cannot store data after turning off), high speed, small amount of storage, expensive. Secondary: slow access speed, cheap, nonvolatile, large amount of data. The most important differences are speed and cost. Static RAM is 5 to 10 times faster and approximately 10 times more expensive than dynamic RAM. Static RAM is composed entirely of transistors, and dynamic RAM is composed of transistors and capacitors. Capacitors require frequent recharging, which slows access time. Application Software: used directly by end users, stored set of instructions for responding to a specific request. System Software: Perform utility functions need by application software, allocates computer resources for application software, manages computer resources, does not interact with end users. The width of the data bus should equal or exceed CPU word size. The bus clock rate should match the CPU clock rate, though this is difficult or impossible to achieve.

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The most important factor is miniaturizationdecreased size of devices and the wires connecting them. Smaller devices and shorter wires mean electricity has less distance to travel to perform a processing function. Therefore, the function is performed more quickly, resulting in higher clock rates.

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The most important factor is the device size and, therefore, the distance electricity must travel to enable the device to perform its function. Another factor is resistance of the internal conductive pathways, which is a function of the materials composing these pathways and the device's operating temperature. Packing density, the type of packaging, and the presence or absence of heat dissipation mechanisms influence operating temperature, which influences resistance and reliability. System software manages computer resources.

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What has the development of system software paralleled the development of computer hardware? What is a buffer? Why might one be used? What is a stack? Why is it needed?

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A buffer is an area of RAM implemented in a device controller, an I/O device, or a storage device. It's used to resolve differences in I/O unit size or speed of data production and consumption. The stack is an area of memory that holds register values of suspended processes. It's needed because register values represent a suspended program's state. These values must be restored to CPU registers to allow a program to resume execution at the point it was suspended. Multiple sets of register values must be stored when interrupts of higher priority cause lower-priority interrupt handlers to be suspended and placed on the stack. An interrupt is a signal to the OS that a request or event has occurred that requires its attention. Interrupts are numeric codes and can be generated by peripheral devices, an explicit software instruction, or the CPU. Peripheral device interrupts are sent over the system bus, detected by the CPU, and placed in an interrupt register. Software and CPU-generated interrupts are placed in the interrupt register by the CPU. The CPU detects an interrupt by checking the interrupt register's contents after each execution cycle. If an interrupt is present, the CPU suspends the current program by performing a push operation. It then branches to the supervisor, which looks up the interrupt code in a table and calls the interrupt handler address it finds there. When the interrupt handler returns to the supervisor, a pop operation is performed, which activates the program that was running when the interrupt was detected.

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What is an interrupt? How is an interrupt generated? How is it processed?

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What is CPU? what are its primary components? What is Grosch's Law? Does it hold today? Why or why not? What is main memory? How does it differ from registers? What is numeric range of a 16-bits twos complement value? a 16-bit excess notation value? a 16-bit unsigned binary value? What is overflow? How can the probability of their occurrence be minimized? What is the difference between a physical access and a logical access? What is the difference between lossy and lossless compression? For what types of data is lossy compression normally used? What is the system bus? What are its main components? Why is binary data representation and signaling the preferred method of computer hardware implementation. Why isn't flash RAM commonly used to implement primary storage?

Central processing unit. Control Unit, Arithmetic Logic Unit, Registers, Clock Unit. Computer performance increases as the square of the cost. No. Multiple classes of computers, expanded abilities to configure computers fro specific purposes, increased software costs relative to hardware costs, multicomputer configurations (grid, cloud) RAM (Random Access Memory). Not inside CPU.

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-2^15 to (2^15-1),(2^15-1) and -2^15. 0-->2^16-1

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Overflow occurs when the absolute value of computational result contains too many bits to fit into a fixed-width data format or when the number is too small and computer cannot represent it. To avoid: used double-precision or long integer, or make variable longer than needed when programming. A physical access describes the storage location to be read or written in terms of the physical organization of storage locations (for example, track, sector, and head for a disk drive). A logical access assumes that the location to be read or written is contained in a linear address space. Therefore, the location is described by a single unsigned integer. Lossless compression compresses the data without losing any information. The original data can be recovered entirely by decompression. Lossy compression loses some data that can never be recovered. Lossy compression is most commonly used with continuous audio or video streams because the human brain doesn't detect the missing data or "fills in the missing pieces automatically. Examples of lossy compression methods include MPEG, JPEG, and MP3. The system bus is the communication channel that connects all computer components. It physically consists of parallel transmission lines that can be grouped into those carrying memory addresses (the address bus), those carrying control and status signals (the control bus), and those carrying data (the data bus). In a logical sense, the bus also consists of the bus protocol. For computer applications to produce accurate outputs, reliable data transport is important. give current technology, binary signals and processing devices represent the most cost-efficient tradeoffs between capacity, accuracy, reliability, and cost.

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Flash RAM wears out after several hundred thousand read/write cycles. Therefore, it would have to be replaced frequently if used as primary storage in a general-purpose computer.