Computer and Number Systems

1.  You have been hired to develop a website-based sales system for a large international retail firm. List and describe at least four features that are specific to the Web design of your system and customer service important to consider if your system is to be successful at attracting and keeping customers living outside of the US. Include not only characteristics of the user interface, but those issues that must be uniquely addressed to successfully service your non-US customers.

2.  In order to receive credit for these problems, you must show all of the steps you took to arrive at your answers.

(c) Convert the following decimal number to binary:

(d) Convert the following binary number to decimal:

(c) Convert the following hexadecimal number to decimal:

(d) Convert the following binary number to hexadecimal:

CPU and Memory

3. ASCII, Unicode, and EBCDIC are, of course, not the only numeric / character codes. The Sophomites from the planet Collegium use the rather strange code shown in the Figure below. There are only thirteen characters in the Sophomite alphabet, and each character uses a 5-bit code. In addition, there are four numeric digits, since the Sophomites use base 4 for their arithmetic. Given the following Sophomite sequence, what is the corresponding binary message being sent by the Sophomites?

4. Define memory cache write-through and write-back techniques and describe the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Input / Output

5. Answer the follow questions about interrupts.

a. Describe in detail the steps that occur when a system receives an interrupt.

b. Describe how these steps differ in the case when a system receives multiple interrupts

Computer Systems

6.  Answer the following questions about clusters.

a. Describe how you might use a cluster to provide fault-tolerant computing

b. Describe how you might use a cluster architecture to provide rapid scalability for a Web-based company experiencing rapid growth.

7.  Answer the following questions about communication protocols.

a. Using the operations of UDP (User Datagram Protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) as a basis, carefully explain the difference between connectionless and connection-oriented communication.

b. If you were ordering a number of items from an online seller, such as amazon.com, which Protocol (TCP or UDP) would you recommend and explain why.

b. How does non-repudiation differ from authentication? 

c. (4 pt) Create a business scenario that illustrates the importance of each.

9. Circle or highlight the correct answer to the following questions / statements about data communications:

(a) What characteristic of an analog signal is measured in Hertz, or cycles per second?

a. Amplitude c. Phase

b. Frequency d. Skew

(b) What measurement unit describes the speed and capacity of a communication channel?

a. Throughput c. Response Time

b. Access Time d. Data Transfer Rate

(c) ____ can be produced by a variety of sources, including electric motors, radio equipment, and nearby power transmission or communication lines.

a. EMI c.  Distortion

b. Attenuation d. Signal/noise (S/N) ratio

(d) A(n) ____ can extend the range of an electrical signal by boosting signal power to overcome attenuation.

a. repeater c. amplifier

b. return wire d. signal wire

(e) Which of the following does not allow multiple messages to be carried on a single channel?

a. time division multiplexing c. packet switching

b. frequency division multiplexing d. half-duplex