Name : Mr.Somkieat Sontiwattrakul ID
: 457055
Chapter
#2 / Computer Evolution and Performance
2.1.
What is a stored program computer?
2.2.
What are the four main components of any general-purpose computer?
2.3.
At the integrated circuit level, what are the three principal constituents of a
computer system?
2.4.
Explain Moore’s law.
2.5.
List and explain the key characteristics of a computer family.
2.6.
What is the key distinguishing feature of a microprocessor?
2.1.
A stored program computer is a computer to use a stored-program concept.
A
stored-program concept is The
programming process could be facilitated if the program could be represented in a form suitable
for storing in memory alongside the data. Then, a computer could get its
instructions by reading them from memory, and a program could be set or altered
by setting the values of a portion of memory.
2.2.
The four main components of any general-purpose computer
v Main memory (M)
v I/O equipmemt (I,O)
v Arithmetic-logic
unit (CA)
v Program control
unit (CC)
2.3.
The three principal constituents of a computer system
v Transistors
v Resistors
v Capacitors
2.4.
Moore’s law
The
famous Moore’s law, which was propounded by Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel,
in 1965. Moore observed that
the
number of transitors that could be put on a single chip was doubling erery year
and correctly predicted that this pace would continue into the near future. To
the surprise of many, including Moore, the pace continued year after year and
decade after decade. The pace slowed to a doubling every 18 months in the
1970s, but has sustained that rate ever since.
2.5.
The key characteristics of a computer family
v Similar or
identical instruction set: In many cases, the exact same set of machine is
instructions is supported on all members of the family. Thus, a program that
executes on one machine will also execute on any other. In some cases, the
lower end of the family has an instruction set that is a subset of that of the
top end of the family. This means that programs can move up but not down.
v Similar or
indentical operation system: The same basic operating system is available for all
family members. In some cases, additional features are added is the higher-end
members.
v Increasing speed: The rate of
instruction execution increases in going from lower to higher family members.
v Increasing number
of I/O ports:
In going from lower to higher family members.
v Increasing memory
size:
In going from lower to higher family members.
v Increasing cost: In going from
lower to higher famly members.
2.6.
The key distinguishing feature of a microprocessor
v Clock speeds
v Bus width
v Number of
ransistors (microns)
v Addressable memory
v Virtual memory
Chapter
#3 / A view of Computer function and interconnection
Review
Question
3.3.
List and briefly define two approaches to dealing with multiple interrupts.
3.4.
What types of transfers must a computer’s interconnection structure (e.g., bus)
support?
Answer
3.3.
Two approaches to dealing with multiple interrupts
The First approach is to disable interrupts
while an interrupt is being processed.
The Second approach is to define priorities
for interrupts and to allow an interrupt to higher priority to cause a
lower-priority interrupt handler to be itself interrupted.
3.4.
The interconnection sturcture must support the following types of transfers:
v Memory to processor: The processor
reads an instruction or a unit of data from memory.
v Processor to memory: The processor
writes a unit of data to memory.
v I/O to processor: The processor
reads data from an I/O device via an I/O module.
v Processor to I/O: The processor
sends data to the I/O device.
v I/O to or from
memory:
For these two cases, an I/O module is allowed to exchange data directly with
memory, without doing through the processor, using direct memory access (DMA).