Section 4 Hardware and Software

Question 1

what is hardware ?

Answer 1

a germ used to describe electrical or electro mechanical parts of a computer and its input , output and storage devices

Question 2

what is software ?

Answer 2

all of the programs taht are written to make a computer function

Question 3

what is system software ?

Answer 3

software needed to run the computers hardware and application programs.
this includes the operating system , utlity programs, libaries and programming langyuage translators

Question 4

what is an operting system?

Answer 4

an operating system is a set of programs that lies between application software and the computernhardware. PROVIDES A USER INTERFACE

Question 5

what are utility programs ?

Answer 5

utility software is system software designed to potmise the performance of the computer or perform tasks such as backing up files , restoring corrupted files from back up

Question 6

what is disk defragmentation?

Answer 6

a program that will reorgranise a hard disk so that files which have been split up into blocks and stored all over the disk will be recombined in a single series of sequential blocks

Question 7

what is a libary program ?

Answer 7

ready compiled programs which can be run when needed

Question 8

what are the 3 translators ?

Answer 8

compiler
interpreter
assembler

Question 9

what is application software ?

Answer 9

programs that perform specific user oriented tasks

Question 10

what is general prupose software ?

Answer 10

softaware that can be used for many different purposes e.g. word , spreadsheets

Question 11

what is special purpose software ?

Answer 11

software that perfroms a single specific task or set of tasks e.g. hotel booking systems

Question 12

what are the functions of an operating system ?

Answer 12

memory management
processor scheduling
backing store management
input / output management

Question 13

what is memory managment ?

Answer 13

this is the process of the cpu deciding how much of the rams storage an instruction / task will require to perform it efficiently

Question 14

what is processor scheduling?

Answer 14

this is when the schedueler alocates when each instruction needs to be executed by the cpu`

Question 15

what is multi tasking ?

Answer 15

this is when the cpu is able to performmore than 1 instruction at a time
the more cores a cpu has the instructions it is able to do at the same time

Question 16

what is backing store management?

Answer 16

this is when a copy of data is created and stored in a seperate storage location so that if gthe original data is lost or corrupted you have a back up copy

Question 17

what is peripheral management ?

Answer 17

this is when the software is able to see what the user inputs with the peripherials and then show a result/ action on the users screen

Question 18

what is a machine code ?

Answer 18

this is a low levek programming language that is made up of the operand and opcode

Question 19

what is a low level programming language ?

Answer 19

a language that a computer is able to run staright away without the need of translating it

Question 20

what is assembly lahnguage?

Answer 20

this is a low level language converted by an assembler

Question 21

what is a high level programming language ?

Answer 21

a language that uses human like lamguage which makes ir easier for programers to write code in

Question 22

what is an imperative high level language ?

Answer 22

a language where the instruction is basically a comand to perform some step in the program , which consists of the step by step instruction needed to complete the task

Question 23

what is an assembler?

Answer 23

something that translates assembley language into the equivelent machine code

Question 24

what is the input to the assembler is called ?

Answer 24

the source code

Question 25

what is the output of an assembler code called ?

Answer 25

object code

Question 26

what is a complier ?

Answer 26

a program that translates a high level language into machine code

Question 27

what is an interpreter?

Answer 27

a different type of programming language translator

Question 28

what is byte code ?

Answer 28

a set of instructions designed to efficiently execute a software interpreter

Question 29

advantages and uses of a compiler and interpreter

Answer 29

• the object code can be saved on disk and run whenever required without ythe need to recompile
• the object code executes faster than interpreted code
• the object code produced by a complier can be distributd and executed wtihout having to have compiler present

Question 30

what are all of the logic gates ?

Answer 30

NOT 
AND 
OR
NAND
NOR
XOR

Question 31

what is demorgans first law ?

Answer 31

____ __ __

A + B = A * B

Question 32

what is demorgans second law ?

Answer 32

____ _ _

A * B = A + B

Question 33

GENERAL RULSE OF BOOLEAN ALGEBRA

Answer 33

X * 0 = 0
X * 1 = X
X * X = X
      _
X * X = 0
X + 0 = X
X + 1 = 1
X + X = X
       _
X + X = 1