Computer Systems Architecture

Question 1:

A. For the computer that you normally use, identify which pieces constitute the hardware and which pieces constitute the system software.

B. Thoroughly explain the difference between personal mobile devices, desktop computers, embedded computers, and servers.

Question 2:

A. To receive full credit, show your work.

Convert the following hexadecimal numbers to decimal:

a. 7D

b. 3E4

c. 3B70

B. What are the 16-bit 1's and 2's complements of the following binary numbers?

a. 10001

b. 100101100001001

c. 0100011000100100

Question 3:

Describe what a bitmapped graphic format is and compare: GIF, PNG, and BMP.

Question 4:

A. Most of the registers in the machine have two-way copy capability; that is, you can copy to them from another register, and you can copy from them to another register. The MAR, on the other hand, is always used as a destination register; you only copy to the MAR. Explain clearly why this is so.

B. Assume the following values in various registers and memory locations at a given point in time:

PC: 30 A: 100 Memory location 30: 160 [ADD 50] Memory location 50: 30. Show the values that are stored in each of the following registers at the completion of the instruction: PC, MAR, MDR, IR, and A.

Question 5:

A. When a system has multiple levels of cache memory, L2 always has more memory than L1. Why is this necessary?
B. Explain what each of these systems are and describe in which situations each of these would be used:

Instruction level parallelism

Data level parallelism

Thread level parallelism.