Computer Architecture Exam 1

Suppose someone writes a program to find the perfect solution to a problem, but it will take 150 years to run. We say that this particular solution is

Computationally infeasible

We study computer _____ to become familiar with how circuits and signals collaborate to create working computer systems

organization

Computer ____ concerns itself with instruction sets and formats, operation codes, data types, the number and types of registers, addressing modes, main memory access methods, and various I/O mechanisms

architecture

The ____ is the agreed-upon interface between all the software that runs on the machine and the hardware that executes it.

instruction set architecture

There are ____ megabytes in a terabyte

2^(20)

There are _____ kilobytes in an exabyte

2^(50)

Clock speeds in today’s microprocessors are measured in ____

gigahertz

Many desktop computers utilize the _____ bus standard in which the system augments its main bus with dedicated I/O buses using expansion slots

peripheral component interconnect

____ allow movement of data to and from devices external to the computer

ports

The organization that sets standard for computer components, signaling protocols, and data representation is the:

IEEE

The organization that sets standards for photographic film and the pitch of screw threads, in addition to matters concerning computers, is the:

ISO

The mechanical computer that included mechanisms that provided memory and an arithmetic processing unit was the:

Difference Engine

The first completely electronic computer was the ___

Atanasoff-Berry Computer

The first general-purpose programmable electronic computer was the

ENIAC

The ENIAC was originally built in order to speed up calculations for ____

ballistics tables

In 1948, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the ____

transistor

The first supercomputer, the CDC 6600, had a memory size of _____.

128 kilowords

Which of the following is a computer that used third generation (integrated circuit) technology

IBM 360

Which of the following is a computer that used fourth generation (VLSI) technology

IBM PC

In 1965, one of the founders of Intel predicted “The density of transistors in an integrated circuit will double every year.” This is now known as:

Moore’s Law

The approximate cost of building a chip fabrication plant today is:

between $1 billion and $15 billion

The difference in expressive power between the physical components of a computer and a high-level language such as C++ is called a ___

semantic gap

The level of the computer hierarchy that is composed of gates and wires is the ___

Digital Logic level

The level of computer hiearchy where an operating system functions is the ___

system software level

The computer component that make sure that instructions are decoded and executed properly is the ____

control unit

Software as a Service (saas) replaces the ___ of the computer hierarchy with an Internet-based application

digital logic level through user levels

Platform as a Service (PaaS) replaces the _____ of the computer hierarchy with an Internet based platform

digital logic level through high-level language levels

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) replaces the ______ of the hierarchy with an Internet-based infrastructure

digital logic level through machine levels

cloud storage is a limited form of

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

The von Neumann bottleneck

describes the single processor-memory path

Deep Blue beat a human chess Grandmaster using ____ methods

brute force

Watson defeated human Jeopardy! champions using ___ methods

cognitive

At the most basic level, a computer is a device consisting of three pieces: A processor; an I/O mechanism and a

memory

Expressed as power of two, there are ______ kilobytes in a megabyte

2^10

Expressed as a power of two, there are ______ megabytes in a terabyte

2^(20)

A terabyte represents what power of two

40

There are ______ nanoseconds in a millisecond

1,000,000

A kilobyte represents what power of two?

10

A gigabyte represents what power of two?

30

The ratio of horizontal pixels to vertical pixels that a monitor can display is its _____ !

aspect ratio

The statement “The cost of capital equipment to build semiconductors will double every four years” is known as:

Rock’s Law

In the von Neumann architecture, the central processing unit (CPU) consists of registers, an arithmetic-logic (ALU), and a(n)

control unit

Computers designed using the ___ architecture have two buses: one for data and one for instructions

Harvard

Computer chips having multiple processing units on a single chip are ______ architecutres

Multicore

Computer architecture encompasses all physical aspects of computer systems

False

Any task done by software can also be done using computer hardware, and any operation performed directly by hardware can be done using software

True

At its most basic level, a computer consists of only two parts: a processor and an I/O device.

False

There are one billion microseconds in a second

False

We can be certain that a mebibyte always consists of 2^(20)

True

Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is the recommended replacement for SATA (serial ATA).

False

Hot plugging means the same thing as Plug-and-Play

false

Color depth reflects the number of colors that can be displayed on an LCD screen at one time

True

Herman Hollerith invented punched card tabulating machines

true

Ballistic tables were produced by the ENIAC during WWII

False

A single transistor can replace several vacuum tubes

False

The CDC 6600 supercomputer was among the first computers to employ transistors

True

The continuation of Moore’s Law is helped by Rock’s Law

False

The control level is above the machine level in the computer level hierarchy

False

A control unit consists of a central processing unit (CPU) with an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and registers

False

Cognitive computing can make inferences within a problem’s context using hard facts and incomplete information

True

Overflow is indicated when the carry into the high-order bit is not equal to the carry out

True

Signed magnitude and two’s complement both have two representations for zero

False

the range of decimal values that can be expressed in seven bits using binary two’s complement is -32 to 31

False

Divide underflow can occur when the divisor in a division operation is greater than zero.

True

Excess-M notation uses unsigned integers to express negative integers

True

The general idea of Booth’s algorithm is to increase the speed of addition when there are consecutive zeroes or ones in the multiplier.

False

In order to provide greater range for a floating-point number, we make the signifcand larger

False

A biased floating-point exponent uses some manner of excess-m representation

True

Only a limited range of real numbers can be expressed using the IEEE 754 standard

True

Floating-point arithmetic can be assumed to be neither associative nor distributive.

True

ASCII is a 7-bit code, while Unicode is a 16-bit code

True

Software as a Service (saas)

A cloud provider might offer an entire application over the internet (Gmail, Netflix, Dropbox, etc)

Number Theory

one decimal number can be subtracted from another by the difference of the subtrahend from all nines and adding back a carry.

One’s complement Diminished radix complement of N

N = (r^d - 1) - N

What is the result of 1’s complement of 0101

1010

Two’s Complement - Diminished radix complement of N

N = {r^d - N for N ≠ 0

0 for N = 0

What is the result of 2’s complement of 0101

1011

Level 6

User - Executable programs

Level 5

High-level language - C++, Java, Fortran, etc

Level 4

Assembly language - Assembly code

Level 3

System software - Operating system, Library code

Level 2

Machine - Instruction Set Architecture

Level 1

Control - Microcode or hardware

Level 0

Digital Logic - Circuit, Gates, etc

Platform as a Service (Paas)

Companies might deploy their own applications (Google App Engine, Microsoft Windows Azure Cloud Service)

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

companies are capable of managing operating system database software (Amazon EC², Google Corporate, Microsoft Azure Service platform)