IB Computer Science 2.1 Computer Organization Questionbank

State the name of the hardware bus responsible for transporting memory addresses between the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and the Random Access Memory (RAM).

$\text{Hexadecimal Value: D2}$

(a) Determine the total number of unique binary patterns that can be represented by a 7-bit register.

(c) State the 8-bit binary representation of the hexadecimal value provided in the specification.

(d) Explain why a system using only the ASCII standard is insufficient for representing a wide variety of global languages.

Identify the component within the Central Processing Unit (CPU) that is responsible for performing calculations and evaluating logical comparisons.

An application package used in an office includes a word processor.

The office manager decides to buy and install new software and hardware.

The changeover to the new system can be achieved by either direct changeover or phased conversion.

The new software allows basic text summaries and analysis to help check text files, including functions such as calculating word frequency.

(a) Describe how a spellchecker checks whether a word in a text file is correctly spelt or not.

(b) Outline one problem that may arise from the installation of new hardware and software in the office.

(c) Compare direct changeover and phased conversion.

(d) Identify one way of testing this software.

(b) Construct a truth table for a logic system with two inputs, $P$ and $Q$. The output variable $Z$ should be True only if the inputs are different (one is True and one is False).

(e) Outline the role of the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) in the processing of instructions.

(f) Explain the 'decode' and 'execute' stages of the machine instruction cycle.

(g) Distinguish between the characteristics of Cache memory and Primary Memory (RAM).