Prelim Revision <3

Question 1

What is a Binary number?

Answer 1

A numeric system that only uses two digits (0 and 1)

Question 2

What is a Denary number

Answer 2

Standard number system (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9)

Question 3

What is an Integer?

Answer 3

A whole number (-ve, +ve or 0)

Question 4

What is Floating Point Representation (FPR) ?

Answer 4

Numbers with a decimal point

Question 5

What is a Real number??

Answer 5

ANY number (-ve, +ve, 0, decimals, fractions etc)

Question 6

What is negative in Two’s Complement?

Answer 6

If the most significant bit (MSB) is +ve or -ve depends on left number (1 is negative 0 is positive)

Question 7

What is the Range?

Answer 7

The difference from lowest to highest in a set of numbers

Example: 8 bits
-2^8-1 to (2^8-1)-1

Question 8

What is a Mantissa?

Answer 8

The number located after the point

Question 9

What is the Exponent?

Answer 9

The power that is used to determine how far the point has moved

Question 10

What is the Precision?

Answer 10

How accurate it can reproduce the original number

Question 11

What is ASCII?

Answer 11

American Standard Code (for) Information Interchange

ASCII uses 7-bits and so can store up to 128 characters

Question 12

What is Extended ASCII?

Answer 12

Extended ASCII uses 8-bits and so can store up to 256 characters

SCOTT’S NUMBER

Question 13

What is Unicode?

Answer 13

16-bits per character! Meaning it can store a maximum of 65 536 different character.

Question 14

What is a Printable Character?

Answer 14

Literally the stuff you print (letters, numbers, punctuation)

Question 15

What is a Character Set?

Answer 15

Characters that can be stored in a particular representation

Question 16

What is standardised?? ASCII or Unicode

Answer 16

Unicode

Question 17

What is a Pixel?

Answer 17

The most basic component of a computer graphic

Question 18

What is Bitmap?

Answer 18

A map of pixels, each pixel has a binary number that determines its colour

Question 19

What is Resolution?

Answer 19

A measure of the number of pixels in an image

Question 20

What is Colour Depth?

Answer 20

The number of bits assigned to each pixel (hence the max amount of colours that can be used in an image)

Question 21

What is Vector Graphics?

Answer 21

2D point located polygons to represent images in computer graphics

Question 22

Use of Bitmap??

Answer 22

Usually used to depict lifelike images

Question 23

Use of Vector??

Answer 23

Used for abstract images (like logos)

Question 24

What is a Bus?

Answer 24

A collection of wires inside the computer that can transfer info and send signals

Question 25

What is an Address Bus?

Answer 25

Wires connecting the Processor to the Memory - tells memory which address location is being used. Address buses are UNI-DIRECTIONAL and made up of parallel wires each carrying a single bit

Question 26

What is a Data Bus?

Answer 26

Wires connecting the Processor to the Memory - tells memory what data is to be sent. Data buses are BI-DIRECTIONAL and made up of parallel wires each carrying a single bit

Question 27

What is a Control Bus?

Answer 27

Made of individual lines with specific functions giving instructions to the rest of the system from the control unit

Question 28

What is the READ Line?

Answer 28

Memory READ operation - reads the contents of the memory location to the processor

Question 29

What is the WRITE Line?

Answer 29

Memory WRITE operation - writes an item of data from the processor into a memory location

Question 30

What is the Clock Line?

Answer 30

Sends a series of pluses into the processor to synchronise events

Question 31

What is a Register?

Answer 31

Storage locations inside the processor that are used to hold instructions or data

Question 32

What is the Memory Address Register (MAR) ? Also lowkey MDR too :)

Answer 32

Used to hold the address of the next instruction or piece of data to be received or sent from memory

Question 33

What is an Instruction Register?

Answer 33

A register used to keep track of where a program is in its execution

Question 34

What are the 4 functions of the CPU?

Answer 34

- Fetch - Decode - Execute - Respond (Write Back)

Question 35

What is Cache?

Answer 35

Stores data so it can be served faster in the future

Question 36

How does increasing number of cores improve performance of a computer system?

Answer 36

The more cores, the more sets of instructions the processor can receive and process at the same time

Question 37

How does increasing the width of a data bus improve performance of a computer system?

Answer 37

Transfers more information at once

Question 38

How does increasing cache memory improve performance of a computer system?

Answer 38

Gets required instructions to the CPU faster - fast access in cache compared to home (main memory)

Question 39

How does increasing clock speed improve performance of a computer system?

Answer 39

The higher the clock rate, the faster the instructions may complete a series of instructions