Low Level Operations

Question 1

What is everything inside a computer saved as?

Answer 1

Binary (1s and 0s)

Question 2

How do we change from numbers to binary and from binary to numbers?

Answer 2

Using this table:

128 | 64 | 32 | 16 | 8 | 4 | 2 |1

Question 3

What is used to represent letters in binary?

Answer 3

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)

Question 4

How many bits does ASCII store letters and characters in?

Answer 4

8 bits, or one byte. Unicode stores charcters in 16 bits so instead of the 255 characters that ASCII can store it can store up to 65,535 characters.

Question 5

What is the difference between a high level language and a low level language?

Answer 5

A high level language uses English like words to tell the computer what to do, LiveCode is a high level language. A low level language is very difficult, to understand. You can program a computer at a low level using a language called machine code. (machine code is different for every type of processor)

Question 6

List the order of storage units in binary.

Answer 6

Bit
Byte (8 bits)
Kilobyte (1024 bytes)
Megabyte (1024 Kilobytes)
Gigabyte (1024 Megabuytes)
Terabyte (1024 Gigabytes)
Petabyte (1024 Terabytes)

Question 7

How can you store graphics in a computer?

Answer 7

Either as a bit-mapped image or as a vector image. (there is too much to explain about what each of these are, check BBC Bitesize)

Question 8

Name the two types of translater programmes and describe their differences.

Answer 8

Compiler programs, and interpreter programs. Compiler programs take all of the code and translate it all in one go, giving you an error report at the end. Interpreter programs translate one line at a time, and stop and report an error when one is found. (the script will stop running)

Question 9

Name some advantages and disadvantages or interpreter and compiler programs.

Answer 9

Interpreter programs can run codes which are incomplete and check them. It is easy to find errors.

For compiler programs the code only has to be translated once and can be saved as a separate file.

Interpreter programs need to be rerun each time the program is run, meaning you must have both programs running and this will slow things down.

Compiler programs have to be run again after a change to retranslate. It can be difficult to spot individual errors and the code must be complete and perfect before it can be run.