CS 250 Midterm 2 Exam Questions and Answers Already Passed
What influences instruction set design - Answers hardware cost, quantified performance, better
compiling, computational workloads
What are the 3 operand types in order of fastest access - Answers immediate operand, register
operand, main memory operand
What is an immediate operand (IMM) - Answers When the operand is contained within the bit
string in the machine instruction
Why is it is called an immediate operand - Answers decoding machine instruction delivers
operand and opcode simultaneously
What is a register operand? - Answers operand stored in a register unit
How are register operands passed through machine instructions? - Answers as a pointer
What is a main memory operand - Answers operand stored in main memory
How are main memory operands passed to machine instructions - Answers a register operand
is passed where the register holds a main memory address
How is boolean algebra defined - Answers truth table
How many elements are in a computers algebra set - Answers 2
What are the elements in a computers algebra set - Answers 0 and 1
What type of logic circuit do computers usually use - Answers CMOS
How do circuits remember value - Answers using a circuit that maintains state by feeding its
own output to itself
What is this logic gate? - Answers AND
What is this logic gate? - Answers OR
What is this logic gate? - Answers NOT
What is this logic gate? - Answers XOR
What is a circuit that remembers a value called - Answers latch
What are registers made up of? - Answers latches
What is a flip-flop circuit? - Answers logic circuit where the first time input is 1 output is 1 and
the second time output is 0 on so on
, What is memory volatility? - Answers when memory contents disappear when power is removed
What are two volatile memory types - Answers cache and ram
What is memory latency - Answers the time from start to end of a memory operation
What are the two memory operations - Answers read and write
What memory operation takes much longer than the other - Answers write
What is ROM - Answers Read Only Memory
Why would people use ROM - Answers prevent user from making unauthorized changes to
software/data
What is RAM - Answers Random Access Memory
What is SAM - Answers sequential access memory
What is a type of SAM - Answers tape
What is memory density - Answers number of memory cells per square area of silicon
How is memory density practically referred to - Answers number of bits represented
What is a memory controller - Answers interface to manage incompatibilities between
processor and physical memory
What does a controller translate - Answers pointers into addresses
What memory hardware problem does a controller deal with - Answers latency
What is a destructive memory read - Answers when the read bit is destroyed i.e reset to 0 after
reading
How do systems deal with destructive memory reads - Answers re-write 1 bits after being read
Where is SRAM used - Answers cache
What is DRAM used for - Answers main memory
How is RAM addressing physically setup - Answers in a grid
What must be done to DRAM for it to work - Answers refresh bits every 64msec
Can programs access DRAM during a bit refresh - Answers no
Why is DRAM used over SRAM for main memory - Answers DRAM has a much higher memory
density
What influences instruction set design - Answers hardware cost, quantified performance, better
compiling, computational workloads
What are the 3 operand types in order of fastest access - Answers immediate operand, register
operand, main memory operand
What is an immediate operand (IMM) - Answers When the operand is contained within the bit
string in the machine instruction
Why is it is called an immediate operand - Answers decoding machine instruction delivers
operand and opcode simultaneously
What is a register operand? - Answers operand stored in a register unit
How are register operands passed through machine instructions? - Answers as a pointer
What is a main memory operand - Answers operand stored in main memory
How are main memory operands passed to machine instructions - Answers a register operand
is passed where the register holds a main memory address
How is boolean algebra defined - Answers truth table
How many elements are in a computers algebra set - Answers 2
What are the elements in a computers algebra set - Answers 0 and 1
What type of logic circuit do computers usually use - Answers CMOS
How do circuits remember value - Answers using a circuit that maintains state by feeding its
own output to itself
What is this logic gate? - Answers AND
What is this logic gate? - Answers OR
What is this logic gate? - Answers NOT
What is this logic gate? - Answers XOR
What is a circuit that remembers a value called - Answers latch
What are registers made up of? - Answers latches
What is a flip-flop circuit? - Answers logic circuit where the first time input is 1 output is 1 and
the second time output is 0 on so on
, What is memory volatility? - Answers when memory contents disappear when power is removed
What are two volatile memory types - Answers cache and ram
What is memory latency - Answers the time from start to end of a memory operation
What are the two memory operations - Answers read and write
What memory operation takes much longer than the other - Answers write
What is ROM - Answers Read Only Memory
Why would people use ROM - Answers prevent user from making unauthorized changes to
software/data
What is RAM - Answers Random Access Memory
What is SAM - Answers sequential access memory
What is a type of SAM - Answers tape
What is memory density - Answers number of memory cells per square area of silicon
How is memory density practically referred to - Answers number of bits represented
What is a memory controller - Answers interface to manage incompatibilities between
processor and physical memory
What does a controller translate - Answers pointers into addresses
What memory hardware problem does a controller deal with - Answers latency
What is a destructive memory read - Answers when the read bit is destroyed i.e reset to 0 after
reading
How do systems deal with destructive memory reads - Answers re-write 1 bits after being read
Where is SRAM used - Answers cache
What is DRAM used for - Answers main memory
How is RAM addressing physically setup - Answers in a grid
What must be done to DRAM for it to work - Answers refresh bits every 64msec
Can programs access DRAM during a bit refresh - Answers no
Why is DRAM used over SRAM for main memory - Answers DRAM has a much higher memory
density
