Everything

Question 1

What is a byte?

Answer 1

8 bits.

Question 2

What is analog data?

Answer 2

A continuous representation, analogous to the actual information it represents.

Question 3

What digital data?

Answer 3

A discrete representation, breaking the information up into separate elements.

Question 4

What does it mean to digitise?

Answer 4

To represent something (such as an image or sound) as a structured sequence of binary digits.

Question 5

What does it mean to discretise?

Answer 5

To convert a continuous space into an equivalent discrete space, often for the purpose of easier calculation.

Question 6

What is Data compression?

Answer 6

Reduction in the amount of space needed to store a piece of data?

Question 7

What is the compression ratio and how do you calculate it?

Answer 7

The size of the compressed data is divided by the size of the original data.
compression ratio = size (compressed data) / size (data)

Question 8

What lossless compresssion?

Answer 8

Once compressed data can be retieved without any loss of original information. For example texts

Question 9

What is lossy compression?

Answer 9

Once compressed some information may be lost in the process of compression. An example is sound and images

Question 10

What is Pulse Coded Modulation?

Answer 10

The process of digitising an analogue signal:

sampling: periodically reading the signal value
quantisation: discretise value

Question 11

What is colour depth?

Answer 11

THe number of bits used to encode colours in the RBG model varies.

Question 12

What is a pixel?

Answer 12

A dot with a colour in an image, or on a screen.

Question 13

What is resolution?

Answer 13

The number of pixels in an image.

Question 14

What are raster graphics?

Answer 14

IMages encoded pixel by pixel.

Question 15

What are vector graphics?

Answer 15

Images described as a collection of geometricals objects.

Question 16

What is a video codec?

Answer 16

An encoder/decoder. A software or hardware that compresses and decompresses digital video. The compression is typically lossy.

Question 17

What is a gate?

Answer 17

A device that performs a basic operation on electrical signals.

Question 18

What is a circuit?

Answer 18

Gates combined to perform more complicated tasks.

Question 19

What is a transistor?

Answer 19

A deivce that acts either as a wire that conducts electricity ot as a resistor that blocks the flow of electricity, depending on the voltage level of an input signal.

Question 20

What is a combinational circuit?

Answer 20

The input values explicitly determine the output.

Question 21

WHat is a squential circuit?

Answer 21

The output is a function of the input values and the existing state of the circuit.

Question 22

What is circuit equivalance?

Answer 22

Two circuits that produce the same output for identical input.

Question 23

What is a half adder?

Answer 23

A circuit that cmoputes the sum of two bits and produces the correct carry bit.

Question 24

What is a full adder?

Answer 24

A circuit that computes the sum of two bits and a carry-in value and produces the sum and a cary-out value.

Question 25

What is a multiplexers?

Answer 25

A circuit that uses input control signals to determine which of seveal input data signals is routed to its ouput signal.

Question 26

What is an S-R latch?

Answer 26

An S0r latch (Set/Reset) stores a single binary bit.

Question 27

What are stored-programs?

Answer 27

Procans can be represented and stored as data inside a computer. There is no significant difference between instructions and data. Therefore, we can store programs in the main data memeory.

Question 28

What are the characteristics of theVon Neumann Architecture?

Answer 28

Any stored-program computer where instructions and data cannot be fetched at the same time, as they are communicated on a common bus.

Question 29

What is the control unit?

Answer 29

THe organising force in the computer. It provides timing sinals and control signals, direction the ALU, memory and I/O devices to responds to instructions. It contains the Instruction Register and the Program Counter.

Question 30

What is the Instruction Register?

Answer 30

A register containing the instructions that is currently being executed?

Question 31

What is the program counter?

Answer 31

Register containg the address of the next intruction to be executed.

Question 32

What does the Arithmetic/Logic Unit (ALU)?

Answer 32

Performs basic arithmetic operations such as addition and multiplication. Also performs logical operations such as AND, OR, and NOT.

Question 33

What is a bus?

Answer 33

A communcation system that transfers data. Can be between componets inside a computer or between computers.

Question 34

What is the memory bus?

Answer 34

Connects the CPU, main memory, other internal componets.

Question 35

What is RAM?

Answer 35

Random Accesss Memory, memory in which each location can be accessed and changed. A form of volatile memory, where data is lost when power is turned off.

Question 36

What is ROM?

Answer 36

Read Only Memory (ROM), memory in which each location can be accessed but not changed. A form of non-volatile memory.

Question 37

What is main memory for?

Answer 37

Main memory (RAM) is used for storing data and programs when currently being run.

Question 38

What is secondary storage?

Answer 38

Devices that store programs and data for extended time. For example: MAgnetic tape drives, MAgnetic disks, optical disks, solid state drives.

Question 39

What is an embedded system?

Answer 39

Computers that are dedicated to perform a narrow range of functions/specified tasks.

Question 40

What is parallelism?

Answer 40

The ability to perform operations concurrently.

Question 41

What is data-level parallelism?

Answer 41

Data subjected to the same operation sequence simultaneously. A single instruction used for multiple data.

Question 42

What is task-level parallelism?

Answer 42

Entire tasks can be completed simultaneously, either on the same data, or on different data.

Question 43

What is an array list?

Answer 43

We can store that data in a contigoues block of memory.

Question 44

What is linked list?

Answer 44

Each data is stored by itself and with a pointer to the next piece of data.

Question 44

What is linked list?

Answer 44

Each data is stored by itself and with a pointer to the next piece of data.

Question 45

What is the purpose of transistors?

Answer 45

Creates logic gates that are used in logic circuits.

Question 46

What is an abstract type?

Answer 46

An abstract data type dfines a data type from the perspective of a user.