What similarities exist among mechanical,
electrical, and optical methods of computation?
What shortcomings of mechanical
computation did the introduction of electrical computing
devices address?
What shortcomings of
electronic computation will optical
computing devices address?
What is a CPU? What are its
primary components?
What are registers? What
is/are their functions?
What is main memory? How does it differ from registers?
What are the differences
between primary and secondary storage?
How does a workstation differ
from a PC?
How does a supercomputer
differ from a mainframe computer?
Describe three types of
multicomputer configurations. What are their comparative advantages and
disadvantages?
What is virtualization?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a single large computer
to host multiple virtual machines compared with using smaller computers
without virtualization?
What class of computer
systems are normally for servers?
What is Grosch's law? Does it
hold today? Why or why not?
How can a computer system be
tuned to a particular application?
What characteristics
differentiate application software from system software?
In what ways does system
software make the development of application software easier?
Why has the development of
system software paralleled the development of computer hardware?
List at least five types of
resources that computers on a local area or wide area
network can share.
Describe the dual roles most operating systems
play in external resource access.
Describe the relationship
between the resource allocation and management functions of system
software and external resources accessible via a network. What system
software functions must be provided to access external resources?
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