Questions and Answers of Computer Architecture

What task is performed by a DNS root server?
What does TLD stand for? What is a ccTLD? What other kinds of TLDs are there? What is the function of a TLD?
What is routing? Explain the difference between circuit switching and virtual circuit switching. What is a third, more common, alternative? How does it differ from the other two?
Who owns Internet backbones? Why are Internet backbones important in modern Internet use?
What is a point of presence?
What is an edge connection in a MAN or WAN?
What is the major difference in implementation between a LAN and a MAN or WAN?
Explain intranet.
What is the purpose of a backbone network?
It is common to characterize networks by their range or area of coverage. What are the major categories of networks based on this criterion?
What is the difference between physical topology and logical topology? Which one is more important when locating the wires for construction of a network? Which is more important in describing the
Draw a bus topology. Draw a star topology.
Explain why full mesh topology is rarely used.
State three major general characteristics that define a channel.
What are the major differences between guided and unguided media?
What is the physical or logical connection between a sender and a receiver called? This connection is usually broken into several parts. What are those parts called? What are the connection points
State at least three reasons why messages are broken into packets for transmission through a network.
Explain briefly the communications between a Web browser and a Web server in fulfilling a Web page request.
What is a message in the context of data communications?
Describe at least three ways in which networking is important to modern organizations.
The book states that there are two different ways of viewing the connection between a computer and a network. Explain.
Offer at least three examples that show the importance of data communications in your daily life.
Explain grid computing.
What is a shared-nothing cluster?
Briefly explain each of the four reasons for creating a cluster. Give an example of each reason if you can.
Define cluster.
What is a “loosely coupled” computer system? How does it differ from a “tightly coupled” system?
What are the advantages offered by I/O channel architecture, such as that used on mainframe computer systems, over bus architecture?
What is a topology? Describe the basic USB topology.
What are the advantages of USB as a means to connect peripheral devices to the computer?
What are major similarities and differences between the PCI-Express bus and the PCI bus?
What is the predominant master bus found on modern personal computers? What advantages does this bus offer over other buses?
Explain what you expect to find on a motherboard.
What is the purpose of a bus interface or bus bridge?
What are the five basic hardware components that make up a computer?
Explain what is meant by synergy.
What does NIC stand for?
Name at least three user input devices other than touch screens that are commonly found in smartphones and other mobile devices.
What is the measure used to indicate the resolution of a printer?
What are the two types of printers in primary use today?
What does OLED stand for? How does OLED technology differ from LCD technology?
Explain how a raster scan works.
Explain the purpose of a GPU. What is the relationship between the CPU and a GPU and the display?
What is true of the red, blue, and green pixel values if the color of the pixel is white? What if it’s black?
A recent Apple iPad has a resolution of 2048 × 1536 and a diagonal scan size of 9.7 inches. What is the picture ratio of this display? What is the pixel density?
How many pixels are there in a 1024 × 768 display? What is the picture ratio of this display?
What do the numbers 1920 × 1080 represent when describing a display?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of magnetic tape as compared to other peripheral storage devices?
How does the layout of a typical optical disk differ from that of a magnetic disk? How many tracks does a standard single-layer CD-ROM contain?
What is a disk array? What advantages does a disk array offer over those of a single disk?
Suppose a disk is rotating at 7200 rpm. What is the minimum latency time for this disk? What is the maximum latency time for this disk?
Draw a sector representing one platter surface of a hard disk with sixteen sectors. On your drawing show a track, the sectors, and a single block. Place a magnetic head somewhere on your drawing.
Draw a circle representing one platter surface of a hard disk. On your drawing show an example of a track, of a sector, and of a block.
What is the advantage of flash memory over RAM? What is the advantage of RAM over flash memory? What is the advantage of flash memory over magnetic hard disk?
State at least three reasons why storage in a computer is organized hierarchically.
Peripheral devices can be categorized into three classes. What are the three classes? Give an example of each.
Name at least three benefits that are provided by I/O controllers.
A graphics card is an example of an I/O controller. I/O controllers have (at least) two interfaces. What are the two interfaces of a graphics card connected to?
What is the purpose of a completion interrupt at the conclusion of a DMA transfer?
What data must an I/O controller have before a DMA transfer takes place? How is this data sent to the controller?
What are the three primary conditions that are required for DMA to take place?
What does DMA stand for? What capability does DMA add to a computer?
What kind of interrupt occurs when a user’s program tries to execute a privileged instruction?
The book lists four primary uses for interrupts. State and explain at least three of them.
What is a context? What does it contain? What is it used for?
When an interrupt occurs, what happens to the program that is currently executing at the time?
Explain the reasons why programmed I/O does not work very well when the I/O device is a hard disk or a graphics display.
Explain the purpose of a buffer.
Name at least two devices that can generate unexpected input.
In terms of the nature of the data, how does a keyboard differ from a hard disk as an input device?
Identify and briefly explain two different ways of configuring a multiprocessing system. Which configuration is more effective for general-purpose computing? Which configuration is more effective for
Modern computers are usually described as multi-core. What does this mean? Under ideal conditions, what performance gain would be achieved using a four-core processor over a single-core processor?
When a system has multiple levels of cache memory, L2 always has more memory than L1. Why is this necessary?
Explain the locality of reference principle and its relationship to cache memory performance and the hit ratio.
Explain what takes place when cache memory is full.
Explain the difference between cache write-through and cache write-back. Which method is safer? Which method is faster?
Explain the hit ratio in cache memory.
Describe how cache memory is organized. What is a cache line? How is it used?
What specific performance improvement is offered by the use of cache memory?
What performance improvement is offered by memory interleaving?
What is a rename register? What is it used for?
The use of multiple execution units can improve performance but also cause problems called hazards or dependencies. Explain how a hazard can occur. How can hazards be managed?
Most CPUs today are super scalar. What does that mean?
Which class of instructions can reduce performance by potentially invalidating the instructions in a pipeline? Identify two methods that can be used to partially overcome this problem.
Explain how pipe lining serves to reduce the average number of steps in the execution part of the fetch–execute cycle.
Explain the advantage in implementing separate fetch and execute units in a CPU. What additional task is implemented in the fetch unit as a performance enhancement measure?
What is the major performance advantage that results from the use of multiple general-purpose data registers?
The x86 series is an example of a CPU architecture. As you are probably aware, there are a number of different chips, including some from different manufacturers even, that qualify as x86 CPUs. What,
Show an instruction format that could be used to move data or perform arithmetic between two registers. Assume that the instruction is 32 bits wide and that the computer has sixteen general-purpose
Show a 32-bit instruction format that allows 32 different op codes. How many bits are available for addressing in your format?
What is a privileged instruction? Which LMC instructions would normally be privileged?
What is a stack? Explain how a stack works. Create a diagram that shows how PUSH and POP instructions are used to implement a stack.
What do program control instructions do? Which LMC instructions would be classified as program control instructions?
Explain the difference between SHIFT and ROTATE instructions.
What operations would you expect the arithmetic class of instructions to perform?
Which Little Man Computer instructions would be classified as data movement instructions?
Briefly describe each of the major disadvantages of parallel buses.
What is the difference between a multi-point bus and a point-to-point bus? Draw diagrams that illustrate the difference.
Explain how data travels on a bus when the bus isSimplexHalf-duplexFull-duplex.
What three types of “data” might a bus carry?

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