Definitions: Single Sentence

Question 1

Translation

Answer 1

The execution of a program by first replacing each instruction in it by an equivalent instruction in L0 and then running this new program.

Question 2

Interpretation

Answer 2

The method of executing an L1 program by feeding it into a L0 program written to convert the L1 instructions of the input program line by line into equivalent L0 instructions and execute those instructions directly.

Question 3

Underflow error for FPU

Answer 3

An underflow error with regards to floating point numbers occur when a small negative number is smaller than 0.1 * 10^-99 or a small positive number is smaller than 0.1 * 10^-99 and is due to the finite nature of the representation for numbers

Question 4

Virtual Machine

Answer 4

A hypothetical computer whose machine language is higher than that of the physical machine on which the virtual machine inevitably runs.

Question 5

Baud Rate

Answer 5

The number of time intervals also known as the number of potential signal changes per second.

Question 6

SIMD processor

Answer 6

Consists of a large number of identical processors that perform the same sequence of instructions on different data

Question 7

Processor bandwidth

Answer 7

Amount of MIPS a CPU has

Question 8

Hamming Distance

Answer 8

The number of bit positions in which two codewords differ.

Question 9

Multiprogramming

Answer 9

Having several programs in memory at once which is useful because while one program may be waiting for input/output to complete another could compute.

Question 10

Data path of von Nuemann machine

Answer 10

Consists of registers, the ALU and the busses connecting the aforementioned pieces.

Question 11

Direct Memory Access (DMA)

Answer 11

A controller that reads or writes to or from memory without CPU intervention

Question 12

Rotational Latency

Answer 12

The delay of time after the read/write head is positioned radially till the desired sector rotates underneath the head.

Question 13

Latency (of a processor)

Answer 13

How long it takes the processor to execute an instruction

Question 14

Vector processor

Answer 14

A processor where all of the instructions occur in a single heavily pipelined unit
Notable vector processor: Cray-1 1974

Question 15

Control Store

Answer 15

A fast read-only memory

Was used to hold interpreter

Question 16

Track (HDD)

Answer 16

The circular sequence of bits written as the disk makes a complete rotation

Question 17

Sector (HDD)

Answer 17

Fixed length division of a track

Question 18

Cylinder (HDD)

Answer 18

The set of tracks at a given radial position.

Question 19

Moore’s Law

Answer 19

Emperical observation that the amount of transistors double every 18 months.

Question 20

Bus

Answer 20

A collection of parrallel wires used to connect the components of a computer

Question 21

Locality principle (Cache Memory)

Answer 21

The observation that the memory references made in any short time interval tend to use only a small fraction of the total memory.

Question 22

Parity

Answer 22

The fact of being even or odd

Question 23

Superscalar Architecture

Answer 23

Describes a processor achitecture where multiple instructions are issued by the processor in a single clock cycle

Question 24

Multiprocessor

Answer 24

Data parallel processors where all the CPU’s are not independent since they have a single control unit and shared memory.

Question 25

Seek (HDD)

Answer 25

The action of moving the read/write head to the correct radial position

Question 26

VLSI

Answer 26

Very large scale integration, put lots of transistors on a single chip.