Exam 5: Computer Systems Organization

As computers become faster, memory access speeds are not keeping pace.

____ machines are designed to directly provide a wide range of powerful features so that finished programs for these processors are shorter.

To understand how computers process information, we must study computers as collections of ____ that perform tasks such as instruction processing, information storage, computation, and data transfer.

The first computer to achieve a speed of 1 million floating-point operations per second, also called 1 ____________________, was the Control Data 6600 in the mid-1960s.

Cluster computing is an example of _________ parallel computing.

A(n)____ is a storage cell that holds the operands of an arithmetic operation and that, when the operation is complete, holds its result.

There are 2³⁰ bytes in a _______.

Explain what a register is and how it differs from random access memory cells.

The ____ holds the address of the next instruction to be executed.

The sectors of a disk are placed in concentric circles called cells . _________________________

A(n)____ handles the details of input/output and compensates for any speed differences between I/O devices and other parts of the computer.

During the ____ phase, the control unit circuitry generates the necessary sequence of control signals and data transfer signals to the other units of the computer to carry out the instruction.

ROM is memory into which information has been prerecorded during manufacture.

Machines that use the simplified approach to designing instruction sets are known as ____________________ machines.

The branch of computer science that studies computers in terms of their major functional units and how they work is known as computer organization.

The memory data register contains the address of the cell being fetched or stored. _________________________

Registers can be accessed much more quickly than random access memory.

The ____ are the devices that allow a computer system to communicate and interact with the outside world as well as store information.

Memory locations are stored in row minor order.

The acronym ____ is frequently used to refer to the memory unit of a computer.