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Introduction to Computer Science

Practice Exercises

Introduction to Computer SciencePractice Exercises

Practice Exercises

1 .
Perform a search on the Internet about the specifications of your own computer as well as other similar computers from companies like Lenovo or Dell in terms of memory size and disk size. What is the ratio disk size to memory size in each computer and why?
2 .
Document how you can obtain the amount of cache memory on your computer.
3 .
Search the web for five different ISAs. For each one, find which companies are building processors that use that ISA. Finally, for each processor from these companies, check whether this processor is used on your portable device (smartwatch, smartphone, tablet), your laptop or computer, or in big supercomputers and data centers.
4 .
You are using the Internet to access a website of your choice. Create a diagram showing the various levels of abstraction of a computer system to explain this particular scenario.
5 .
Research and explain a few key responsibilities of operating systems.
Suppose you wish to express –64 as a two’s complement number.
6 .
What is the minimum number of bits we will need?
7 .
With this minimum number of bits, what is the largest positive number you can represent, assuming signed numbers of course? (Answer in both decimal and binary.)
8 .
With that same number of bits you used in the previous questions, what is the largest unsigned number you can represent? (Answer in both decimal and binary.)
9 .
Represent the decimal digit 90 in binary.
10 .
Add the following binary numbers: 0111000101 + 0000100101?
11 .
Find the one’s complement of 1010001000011111.
12 .
Find the two’s complement of 000010001111110.
13 .
Make a list of at least three ISAs in existence today. For each one, find out whether it is CISC or RISC and in which processors it is used. Finally, take the list of these processors and see whether they are used in high-performance computing machines or portable devices.
14 .
Make a list of three or four accelerators and, for each one, describe the type of applications they excel at and why.
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