2. Hardware And Software

Question 1

What are the 5 elements of a computer system?

Answer 1

1. Hardware – physical components of the system
2. Software – instructions and programs used to control hardware
3. Data – raw information imported into the system
4. Personnel – people involved in the system e.g., users, developers
5. Procedures – modes of action that personnel perform to initiate and complete tasks

Question 2

What are the 5 functions of hardware?

Answer 2

1. Input
2. Processing
3. Control
4. Storage
5. Output

Question 3

Examples of Input

Answer 3

Mouse, keyboard, webcam, camera, microphone, scanner, RFID tag

Question 4

Differentiate primary and secondary storage

Answer 4

Primary is a volatile memory used by the system to temporarily store information to function.

Secondary storage is used to store information for long periods of time, where the information is not needed for the system to function.

Question 5

What are the different level of generations of programming languages?

Answer 5

• Low: Instructions relate directly to CPU. First and second generations of machine languages and assembler.
• High: Translated into machine code. Can be converted to support many different architectures. Third and fourth generation languages (declarative)

Question 6

Steps of Translation

Answer 6

Lexical analysis: check for valid functions of code
Syntactical analysis: grammar/syntax
Code generation

Question 7

What are the two types of translation and how do they differ?

Answer 7

• Compilation: whole software is recompiled to run on the new architecture. No longer needs compiler.
• Interpretation: translates source code line by line. Continues until an error occurs. Slower than compilation.

Question 8

What are the steps in the fetch execute cycle?

Answer 8

1. Fetch
2. Decode
3. Execute
4. Store

Question 9

The requirements for software?

Answer 9

• Processor
• RAM
• Disk space
• Peripheral devices