April 2000
CS202 : COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE AND DATA COMMUNICATIONS

QUESTION 1 (Compulsory)

Total Marks: 30 Marks

• Question 2
• Question 3
• Question 4
• Question 5
• Cover Page

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SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS
for Question 1

(a)What is an interrupt?[2 marks ]

(b)What is Memory Cycle Time?Explain why it is necessary to reduce this,and give one way in which a reduction can be achieved.[4 marks ]

(c)What do you understand by the following terms:
(i)OSI Reference Model [2 marks ]
(ii)Statistical Time-Division Multiplexing (STDM)[2 marks ]

(d)The registers in the CPU may be divided into two groups,according to the functions that they serve.Explain what these two functions are.[4 marks ]

(e)Briefly describe why many organizations are now using distributed systems.
[3 marks ]

(f)Describe three bene .ts of using subroutines.[3 marks ]

(g)Given that a computer system has a 40-bit wide instruction word and there are 12 instructions in the instruction set;4 bits for the opcode and 36 bits remaining for the operands.Give the number of addressable locations for a 3-address,2-address and a 1-address machine.Show your workings.[3 marks ]

(h)A large company has two office blocks in one large city.Select a transmission medium suitable for creating a company LAN in that city between the two buildings.Explain reasons for your choice.
Would your chosen medium be suitable if the offices were in different cities,100km apart?Explain why/why not.[7 marks ]