THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

SCHOOL OF NATURAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

CSC 2101 – INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER SYSTEMS

DURATION: 3 HOURS
DATE: 25TH FEBRUARY, 2015

INSTRUCTIONS
 This paper has a total of five questions
 You must answer a total of four (4) questions
o Section A is compulsory for all
o Section B has four (4) questions, attempt any three (3)
 All questions carry equal marks (25 marks each)
 Clearly number all your answers
 Use the marks as a guide to the detail required in your answers while keeping your
answers concise and relevant

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SECTION A
QUESTION ONE

a. Draw a block diagram showing principal components of an I/O module [5 marks]

b. State 5 services provided by the Operating system, giving a brief explanation of how the
OS works in providing each service [10 marks]
c. What are 4 layers of the TCP/IP model and what is the function performed by each layer
[8 marks]
d. Briefly define each of the following: [2 marks]
i. Hardware
ii. Software

SECTION B (Choose any three)

QUESTION TWO

a. Define the following; [6 marks]

i. Programming Language
ii. Syntax
iii. Semantics
b. What is the meaning and what role do the following play in the CPU: [10 marks]
i. MAR
ii. MBR
iii. I/O AR
iv. I/O BR
v. PC
c. Discuss the following network topologies: [9 marks]
i. Bus
ii. Star
iii. Ring

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QUESTION THREE

a. Which of the following memories are possible and which are not? Explain [5 marks]
i. 7-Bit address, 8-bit cell-size, 128-bit memory
ii. 4-Bit address, 24-bit cell-size, 128-bit memory
iii. 4-Bit address, 12-bit cell-size, 96-bit memory
iv. 3-Bit address, 16-bit cell-size, 96-bit memory
v. 8-Bit address, 128-bit cell-size, 512-bit memory
b. Using an n-bit address, determine the value of n required to address 1023 cells. With this
value of n, what will be the addresses of the last two cells in binary? [5 marks]
c. Compare and contrast the two RAM technologies, DRAM and SRAM [10 marks]
d. Discuss the following ROM variations: [5 marks]
iv. PROM
v. EPROM

QUESTION 4

a. With the aid of a diagram, give the 7 layers of the OSI Reference model. Give a brief
description of what each layer does. [14 marks]
b. Compare and contrast the two physical network technologies, Circuit Switched
(connection oriented) and Packet Switched (Store and Forward) [10 marks]
c. What is the 8-bit binary representation of the integer 107? [1 mark]

QUESTION 5

a. A compiler operates in phases, each of which transforms the source program form one
representation to another. Consider a particular compiler that outputs assembly code, given
the following statement: position := initial + rate * 60, show the various outputs from
each phase of compilation. Assume all identifiers have been declared to be real numbers
and that 60 by itself is declared to be an integer [10 marks]

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b. What is an interconnection structure? [3 marks]
c. Define three functional groups into which bus lines can be classified and state the
significance of each classification width. [6 marks]
d. How many check bits would be needed for the following data bits? [6 marks]
i. 64
ii. 128
iii. 256

END OF EXAM

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