I. S. T. 231

Computer Architecture

Question Pool for Exam 1

NO calculators allowed

  1. What was the original purpose/goal in the design of operating systems?

  2. What is today main purpose/goal in the design of operating systems?

  3. Explain why the primary purpose of having an O.S. changed from the 1960 to the 1990s.

  4. Probably the 1st operational electronic computer was built in __________________ (country) by __________________ (person) in ______ (year).

  5. The 1st operational electronic computer was built in the US by __________________ and__________________ at _______________ (place) in _____ (year). This machine was funded by ________________________ for the purpose of ___________________________________.

  6. What is the meaning of the address stored in a location-counter?

  7. Early system designers wanted to increase CPU efficience by increasing the number of programs in memory from 1 to some small n.  Explain the reasoning behind that goal; ie. why would having more programs in RAM increase total CPU efficiency?

  8. Convert 10B316 (or a slightly different number) to ________________________2

  9. Convert 11000011101011112 (or a slightly different number) to __________________________16

  10. Convert 462 (or a slightly different number) to ________________________10

  11. Assume that 101010102 is a positive number N. Convert it to -N using 2s-complement notation.

  12. What is the difference between a priviledged instruction and a non-priviledged one?

  13. Why have both priviledged and non-priviledged instructions?

  14. Give 3 examples of a priviledged instruction.

  15. What are the 4 actions carried out the the CPU's microcode (over and over and over)?

  16. What is the "very largest" program that could execute on a machine with a 24-bit location counter?

  17. Define Assembly language.

  18. Define Source Code

  19. Define Object module

  20. Define Executable module

  21. What program converts Source to Object?

  22. What program converts Object to Executable?

    Question Pool for Exam 2


  23. In general, what are the major actions that occur when an iterrupt occurs?

  24. What interrupt is created when a desired frame is not currently resident in RAM?

  25. What interrupt is created when "it's time" to switch from 1 program to a different one?

  26. How does the hardware 'know' that a desired frame is not currently resident in RAM?

  27. How does the kernel 'know' where on disk the desired information is for a non-resident frame?

  28. Describe what demand paging means.

  29. What corp./laboratory may fairly take credit for inventions like the mouse, windows, pull-down menus etc.?

  30. Describe the behavior of a "2-handed clock" algorithm.

  31. ____________________ and _____________________ started Microsoft in 19______.

  32. What corp./laboratory may fairly take credit for inventions like the mouse, windows, pull-down menus etc.?

  33. ____________________ and ______________________ co-founded Apple.  ________________ then started NeXT, and is now the CEO of Pixar?

  34. What did Steve Jobs see while visiting PARC that inspired him to build a different kind of computer? 
    What did he see that he completely ignored?
        What was the 1st computer that he built based on this inspiration (that flopped)?
        What was the 2nd one that didn't flop?
  35. MS/DOS was 90% derived from a predecessor product named  ________
        which was written by _______________
        and owned by   _________________.
        which in turn had been cloned from ____________
        written by _______________________

  36. What is a 'killer application'

  37. What was the killer app for the Apple II?

  38. What was the killer app for the IBM PC?

  39. What was the killer app for the Apple MacIntosh?

  40. Why didn't IBM create their own OS for their 1st PC?

  41. Who 'should have' sold IBM their operating system for the 1st IBM PC?

  42. What was the one part of the 1st IBM PC that was proprietary (that Compaq had to later reverse engineer)?

  43. Why did IBM decide to build the PC using 'open architecture'?
        What was the almost immediate result of IBM having made that decision?

  44. What was IBM's motivation for designing/building PS-2/OS-2?

  45. What person ______________ what company ________________ built the 1st commerically available micro computer in 19____

    Question Pool for Final Exam


  46. Record Blocking is used to overcome what problem?

  47. Explain how Blocking works.

  48. What do the letters JCL stand for?

  49. What does //  EXEC PGM=ABCDEF           communicate to the OS

    Given:   //name1 DD DSNAME=name2,DSORG=IS,
                //        (LRECL=100,BLKSIZE=800,RECFM=F),DISP=(NEW,KEEP,DELETE),
                //        SPACE=(100,5000,CONTIG),

  50. What does name1 refer to? ie. how is it used?

  51. What does name2  refer to?

  52. What information is RECFM trying to communicate to the OS?

  53. What information is DISP trying to communicate to the OS?

  54. In the example above, what is the explicit meaning of the all of the parameters in the DISP option?

  55. How much space is being requested for the file?

  56. What is the meaning of the CONTIG option?

  57. What information is LRECL trying to communicate to the OS?

  58. What information is BLKSIZE trying to communicate to the OS?

  59. Why are there so many files with a record length = 80?

  60. What is meant by the term "Copy-left"?

  61. Who is the 'father' of the Free Software Foundation?

  62. Who invented Unix and C?

  63. Who invented Linux?

  64. What operating system is Linux based on?

  65. Who can make money on software that is being "given away for free"?