Overview of Computer 25
Computer architecture and organization are
hardware-oriented subjects. Their software-related
parts are also based on computer hardware. The
basic concepts dealt in this area are equally
important for both hardware as well as software
professionals. There is a general misconception
that computer hardware knowledge is not essen-
tial to excel in software development.
A few years before, one of my students, who
was excellent in software development and was
able to develop some real good software pack-
ages very well-accepted and appreciated by
computer professionals, was offered a wonder-
ful pay package by some well-established and
renowned software development organization.
He accepted the offer and left his organization,
where he was employed. However, within a
couple of weeks of his change in job-pro le, I
received a call from him and then came to know
that he is back to his previous organization that
he had left. The reason? In his new organiza-
tion, he was entrusted to develop some device
driver software, which needed adequate hard-
ware knowledge in some areas of computer.
QUICKSAND CORNER
REVIEW QUESTIONS
Target the Correct Option
1. ADC is the abbreviation for
(a) advanced digital computer
(b) analog to digital converter
(c) accurate digital computing
(d) none of these
2. Which one of the following you would not be
able to nd within the chassis of any computer?
(a) printer (c) SMPS
(b) motherboard (d) none of these
3. Which of the following processor was used in
the rst IBM PC?
(a) 386 (c) 8088
(b) 8086 (d) none of these
4. Which of the following is responsible for
incrementing the program counter by one?
(a) processor clock (c) gate
(b) timer (d) none of these
5. Which of the following signal is generated
from program counter?
(a) address (c) control
(b) data (d) none of these
6. Instruction decoding is performed by the
processor
(a) before fetch (c) after fetch
(b) during fetch (d) none of these
7. Which of the following processor may be
located within an IBM PC keyboard?
(a) 8085 (c) 8748
(b) 8751 (d) none of these
8. A nibble is composed of
(a) 1-bit (c) 6-bits
(b) 4-bits (d) none of these
9. Which of the following modules decodes and
executes the instructions?
(a) operating system (c) internal bus
(b) microarchitecture (d) none of these
10. The window through which the application
programs interact with the system hardware
is known as
(a) operating system (c) internal bus
(b) microarchitecture (d) none of these
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26 Computer Architecture and Organization
1. What is the purpose of keyboard, mouse and
display device for a computer?
2. What is the difference between a printer and
a XY-Plotter?
3. What is meant by USART?
4. What is the purpose of program counter?
5. What do you expect to locate after opening a
computer chassis?
6. How does a computer spend its time as long
as it is switched on?
7. What is the purpose of control bus?
8. In which case handshaking signals are
essential?
9. What are major building blocks of a computer?
10. Which role is played by microarchitecture?
Find in Few Seconds
Spend Some Time Here
1. Is it possible to completely replace a keyboard
by a mouse? Justify your answer.
2. What is the difference between a scanner and
a digitizer?
3. What is the main purpose of the processor
clock?
4. In general, the value of program counter
is always increased. In what condition it is
decreased?
5. Find the mistake(s), if any, in the following
gure.
6. Why logic gates are designated as ‘gates’?
7. Capacitors can also hold electrical charge and
therefore electrical information. What might
be the problem if ip- ops are replaced by
capacitors?
8. Why the internal bus cannot serve the purpose
of external bus?
9. Correlate entries of left and right columns of
the following table on next page.
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Overview of Computer 27
10. What might be the problem(s) if the applica-
tion programs are allowed to interact directly
with the system hardware in absence of any
operating system?
Boolean operators XY-plotter, printer, display
Input devices 8085, 8086, 80386
Processor peripherals Gates, ip- ops
chassis Printer, mouse, display
Microprocessors Windows, MS DOS
Output devices 80386, Timer, USART
motherboard Motherboard, SMPS, HDD
Digital logic USART, Timer, PPI
Operating systems ADC, keyboard, mouse
External devices AND, NOR, XOR
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