Computer Architecture

Question 1

What is a buffer?

Answer 1

Memory used to store information being transferred by the interface

Question 2

Which bus is used to identify a memory location for reading or writing

Answer 2

Address Bus

Question 3

Which bus is used to transfer data between processor and memory?

Answer 3

Data bus

Question 4

What is the job of the ALU?

Answer 4

To perform calculations and arithmetic operations

Question 5

What is the job of the control unit?

Answer 5

To load, decode and execute instructions

Question 6

What is the job of the registers?

Answer 6

To act as memory locations used by the processor

Question 7

What do buses do?

Answer 7

Connect the CPU to main memory

Question 8

Registers act as temporary storage areas which hold information such as…

Answer 8

The address of the next instruction to be fetched (Program Counter)
Address of the memory location where data is to be written to or read from (Memory Address Register)
(Intermediate) results of arithmetic and logic operations (Accumulator), i.e. data items themselves

Question 9

When data is read from or written to memory…

Answer 9

The processor sets up the address register with the address of the memory location to be accessed
Read or write line on the control bus is activated
Data is then transferred to or from the data register via the data bus

Question 10

The total number of memory locations is given as:

Answer 10

2 to the power of the number of lines in the address bus e.g. 16 lines = 2^16 possible memory locations

Question 11

What are the steps taken by the processor during the fetch-execute cycle?

Answer 11

Transfer contents of program counter into memory address register
Increment the program counter
Activate read line (So transferring instruction to the data register)

Question 12

Which function of an interface is responsible for telling a user that the printer is out of ink?

Answer 12

Transferring status information

Question 13

The total number of memory locations which can be used by the processor is determined by…

Answer 13

The number of lines in the address bus

Question 14

The number of lines in the data bus determines…

Answer 14

The word size of the processor. How much data can be fetched at once.

Question 15

The purpose of an interface is to

Answer 15

Allow the processor to communicate with peripherals

Question 16

Processor performance can be improved by

Answer 16

1. Using cache memory which has faster access times than RAM

2. increase size of data bus, so more data/instructions transferred at once

Question 17

Speeding up the processor and reducing the size of transistors will

Answer 17

Improves performance at the expense of additional power consumption and heat dissipation

Question 18

What is an emulator?

Answer 18

Software which duplicates the function of one computer system into another

Question 19

What is a virtual machine?

Answer 19

An emulation of a complete computer system - can be used to run alternative operating systems or several copies of a single operating system

Question 20

A program counter stores the

Answer 20

Address of the next instruction

Question 21

The accumulator stores the

Answer 21

Result of the last calculation

Question 22

The address bus is a

Answer 22

Unidirectional bus

Question 23

Number of lines in the data bus determines the

Answer 23

Word size of the processor - i.e. the number of bits of data/instructions transferred together in one fetch

Question 24

The number of lines in the address bus determines the

Answer 24

Maximum addressable memory

Question 25

A virtual machine exists:

Answer 25

In RAM