Briefly explain Huffman coding.
What does the acronym 'ALU' stand for?
What functions might you expect a 'typical' ALU to perform.
What do the acronyms 'RISC' and 'CISC' stand for?
Briefly explain the motivation behind the RISC concept.
With reference to the fetch/execute cycle, briefly explain immediate, direct, & indirect addressing.
With the aid of a diagram describe the memory hierarchy in a modern PC.
Describe the types of memory available in an Arduino microcontroller.
Compare & contrast serial and parallel interfacing schemes.
Compare & contrast synchronous and asynchronous serial interfaces.
Explain how an analogue to digital converter works.
Explain how digital to analogue conversion works in the Arduino when using the 'analogWrite'
function.
What is the resolution of the Arduino analogue to digital converter.
Produce an Arduino code segment which will read an analogue value (from eg a potentiometer) and
use this to control the brightness of a LED.
What do the acronyms 'SPI' and 'I2C' stand for?
Outline the operation of both SPI & I2C
List the eight underlying principles of the Data Protection Act.
What are the two essential functions in an Arduino program or sketch?
List three common network topologies.
Briefly describe 'circuit switching' and 'packet switching'
What do the acronyms 'LAN', 'MAN', and 'WAN' stand for?
Distinguish between 'client server' and 'peer to peer' network models.
Perform the matrix multiplication:
1234
5678
1234
5678
X
1234
2222
3333
4321
In the context of computer graphics, identify & describe the influence of the four distinct regions of
a 4x4 transformation matrix.
1. If the word 'Mississippi' is encoded using Huffman coding, the character requiring the most bits to
encode is:
a) M
b) i
c) s
d) p
e) none of the above
2. The acronym 'ALU' stands for:
a) Algebraic Logic Unit
b) Arithmetic Logic Unit
c) Arithmetic Look Up
d) Adder List Unit
e) Algebraic List Unit
3. Which of the following functions would you NOT expect a typical ALU to perform:
a) Addition
b) Subtraction
c) logical AND
d) logical OR
e) table lookup
4. The aronym 'CISC' stands for:
a) Complete Instruction Set Computer
b) Complete Instruction Set Compiler
c) Complex Instruction Set Computer
d) Complex Information Set Composer
e) Complex Instruction Set Composer
Which of the following most accurately characterises cache memory?
a) Large, slow, expensive
b) Small, fast, expensive
c) Small, slow, cheap
d) Large, slow, cheap
e) Small, fast, cheap
The capacity of a CD ROM is approximately:
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
4 kilobytes
64 kilobytes
100 megabytes
650 megabytes
650 gigabytes
A typical cause of an interrupt in a microcontroller might be:
a) An external device requiring attention
b)
c)
d)
e)
A syntax error in the program
An arithmetic overflow
The end of a subroutine
A DMA transfer
To send and receive serial data you might use a device called a:
a) UART
b) PIA
c) DMAC
d) RS232
e) NRZ
Firewire (IEEE 1394) is an example of:
a) High speed parallel I/O
b) High speed serial I/O
c) Low speed parallel I/O
d) Low speed serial I/O
e) None of the above
22. The I/O technique most probably used to transfer large amounts of data at high speed is:
a) Programmed I/O
b) Character I/O
c) Interrrupt I/O
d) Serial I/O
e) DMA
23. In relation to programmed and interrupt I/O, which of the following statements is most
accurate?
a) Interrupt I/O is much faster than programmed I/O
b) The data transfer rate is faster in interrupt I/O than programmed I/O
c) The data transfer rate is the same in both, but interrupt I/O is more efficient
d) The data transfer rate is the same in both, but programmed I/O is more efficient
e) Programmed I/O is much more complicated than interrupt I/O
Which of the following memory types is NOT available in an Arduino microcontroller:
a) Registers
b) Cache
c) RAM
d) EEPROM
e) FLASH
What is the (decimal) range of values which can be produced by the Arduino analogue to
digital converter?
a) 0 to 255
b) -128 to +127
c) 3 to 9
d) 0 to 1023
e) 0 to 65535
Which of the following is NOT an underlying principle of the Data Protection Act?
a) Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or
purposes for which they are processed.
b) Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date.
c) Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is
necessary for that purpose or those purposes.
d) Personal data should be disposed of under the supervision of the Data Controller
e) Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under
this Act.
A hypothetical microprocessor has an instruction 'Load Accumulator' or LDA for short.
Given the instruction: LDA 4, which uses direct addressing, we can say that this instruction:
a) Puts the number 4 in the accumulator
b) Puts the contents of Register 4 into the accumulator
c) Puts the contents of memory pointed to by memory location 4 into the accumulator
d) Puts the contents of memory location 4 into the accumulator
e) Loads the accumulator four times