Homework #1

Computer system and Architecture

 

Name : Mr.Somkieat Sontiwattrakul                                               ID : 457055   

 

 

 


Chapter #2 / Computer Evolution and Performance

Review Question

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?

 

 

Answer

 

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).