Computer Quiz Show #5


Results 1 to 10 of 10

Thread: Computer Quiz Show #5

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Augusta, GA
    Posts
    5,459

    Computer Quiz Show #5

    Welcome back to the Computer Quiz Show where you may win prizes for being knowledgable. If you want to win prizes for being ignorant, you might want to visit the Political Quiz Show carried by other channels.
    Bob, don't we have a lovely audience today?
    Yes we do and I'll bet they can't wait to play! Remember folks, we will only have reruns on the weekend and will be back with a brand new show on Monday.
    Heeeerrree weee gooo!
    1. PC's have a "bus"- no, not one to carry them places!- but a bus inside the case. There may be more than one kind of bus. Bus(s) are a collection of circuits and wires thought of as a "highway" to carry data. Which two main components recieve the data from a bus?
    2. Each bus is measured in two ways. One is speed, what is the other?
    3. A bus has two parts. What are they?
    4. Some PC's have a "local" bus that connect a part directly to what component(s)?
    Last edited by hard candy; 04-28-2006 at 08:36 AM.
    __________________________________________________ _______________________________________
    Bigboogie on boogienights.net:
    Ammo case
    Asus 8N32 SLI MB
    AMD Athlon x2 3800+
    2 GB Patriot Signature 400 DDR
    160 GB Hitachi 7200 IDE
    2 x-250 Seagate SATA2
    EVGA Nvidia 7900GT
    Dell 2007WFP
    Logitech 5.1 speakers
    Logitech MX1000 mouse
    Dell USB keyboard
    NEC 3500 DVD-RW
    Benq 1655 DVD-RW



    (God bless tax refunds)

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2000
    Location
    Glasgow, Scotland
    Posts
    4,361
    Again - totally off the top of my head, with no research (because I'm lazy....)

    1. Processor, Memory
    2. Width (IIRC in bits 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit etc)
    3. Erm...... not sure on this one.
    4. Memory (as in DMA - Direct Memory Access)
    mrBen "Carpe Aptenodytes"

    Linux User #216794

    My blog page

    3rd year running - get yourself to LugRadio Live 7th-8th July 2007, Wolverhampton, UK. The premier FLOSS community event.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2000
    Location
    Glasgow, Scotland
    Posts
    4,361
    BTW - how did you manage to get a bit-part in UserFriendly this week?
    mrBen "Carpe Aptenodytes"

    Linux User #216794

    My blog page

    3rd year running - get yourself to LugRadio Live 7th-8th July 2007, Wolverhampton, UK. The premier FLOSS community event.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Augusta, GA
    Posts
    5,459
    Quote Originally Posted by mrBen
    BTW - how did you manage to get a bit-part in UserFriendly this week?
    Paid a large amount of money and begged for two weeks.
    __________________________________________________ _______________________________________
    Bigboogie on boogienights.net:
    Ammo case
    Asus 8N32 SLI MB
    AMD Athlon x2 3800+
    2 GB Patriot Signature 400 DDR
    160 GB Hitachi 7200 IDE
    2 x-250 Seagate SATA2
    EVGA Nvidia 7900GT
    Dell 2007WFP
    Logitech 5.1 speakers
    Logitech MX1000 mouse
    Dell USB keyboard
    NEC 3500 DVD-RW
    Benq 1655 DVD-RW



    (God bless tax refunds)

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2003
    Location
    Zurich, Switzerland
    Posts
    2,657
    Quote Originally Posted by hard candy
    1. PC's have a "bus"- no, not one to carry them places!- but a bus inside the case. There may be more than one kind of bus. Bus(s) are a collection of circuits and wires thought of as a "highway" to carry data. Which two main components recieve the data from a bus?
    2. Each bus is measured in two ways. One is speed, what is the other?
    3. A bus has two parts. What are they?
    4. Some PC's have a "local" bus that connect a part directly to what component(s)?
    1. CPU, Main Memory
    2. Speed and Width
    3. Power and data wiring
    4. The CPU and any storage hardware inside the computer case

    "What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."

    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    Uh, I'm somewhere where I don't know where I am.
    Posts
    1,228
    3. Data and clock?
    if (i_forgot && this_is_about_code)
    language = c++;

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Transplanted from beautiful La Quinta, CA to Long Beach, CA...there are no stars here at night!
    Posts
    1,240
    You really need to specify which bus we're talking about, here.
    If EXP-I/O: S-100, ISA8, ISA16, EISA, MCA, VLB, PCI(x), AGP, PCIE...some of us have been around for a while.

    1. Which two main components recieve the data from a bus?
    In the case of the PCI (a mezzanine architecture), we're talking 'Bridge/Memory Controller' (bus generation) and 'EXP Bus XFACE' (interface expansion); but you can call them the 'NorthBridge' and 'SouthBridge'.

    If, on the other hand, you're going for very general system components with an unspecified bus type, you're probably looking to hear 'CPU' and 'memory' as an answer.

    2. Each bus is measured in two ways. One is speed, what is the other?
    Speed...yes, and width (number of data/address lines).

    3. A bus has two parts. What are they?
    In general terms of accessing and moving data: 'Address channel' and 'Data channel'; however PCI merged the formerly separate 'Address bus' and 'Data Bus' into a single, read/write-controlled, level-triggered channel and incorporated a mildly enhanced Power/Command/Status channel set that merged old control analogues with the newer PCI/PnP control/status (inc. bus mastering arbitration) requirements.

    Currently we're dealing with 'Address/Data' and 'Power/Control/Status' channels; and I hope to gawd that you aren't thinking of "expansion slot connector" and "pcb traces" as the 'two parts'.

    4. Some PC's have a "local" bus that connect a part directly to what component(s)?
    Are we talking 'VLB' here? (Nostalgia time!)
    Bus controller, External Cache and CPU.

    BTW: Are we doing your homework questions for you, or what?
    Last edited by EnigmaOne; 04-28-2006 at 06:11 PM. Reason: changed 'code' to 'quote'

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Augusta, GA
    Posts
    5,459
    A bus, in computer terms, is simply a channel over which information flows between two or more devices (technically, a bus with only two devices on it is considered by some a "port" instead of a bus). A bus normally has access points, or places into which a device can tap to become part of the bus, and devices on the bus can send to, and receive information from, other devices. The bus concept is rather common, both inside the PC and outside in the real world as well. In fact, your home telephone wiring is a bus: information flows through the wiring that goes through your house, and you can tap into the "bus" by installing a phone jack, plugging in the phone and picking it up. All the phones can share the "information" (voice) on the bus.
    Some newer PCs actually use an additional "bus" that is specifically designed for graphics communications only. The word "bus" is in quotes because it isn't actually a bus, it's a port: the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP). The distinction between a bus and port is that a bus is generally designed for multiple devices to share the medium, while a port is only for two devices.
    Answers:
    1. CPU and main memory
    2. Width- A bus is a channel over which information flows. The wider the bus, the more information can flow over the channel, much as a wider highway can carry more cars than a narrow one. The original ISA bus on the IBM PC was 8 bits wide; the universal ISA bus used now is 16 bits. The other I/O buses (including VLB and PCI) are 32 bits wide. The memory and processor buses on Pentium and higher PCs are 64 bits wide.
    The address bus width can be specified independently of the data bus width. The width of the address bus dictates how many different memory locations that bus can transfer information to or from.
    3. Every bus is composed of two distinct parts: the data bus and the address bus. The data bus is what most people refer to when talking about a bus; these are the lines that actually carry the data being transferred. The address bus is the set of lines that carry information about where in memory the data is to be transferred to or from.
    In addition, there are a number of control lines that, well, control how the bus functions, and allow users of the bus to signal when data is available. These are sometimes refered to as the control bus, though often they are simply not mentioned.
    4. The Local I/O Bus: This is a high-speed input/output bus used for connecting performance-critical peripherals to the memory, chipset, and processor. For example, video cards, disk storage devices, high-speed networks interfaces generally use a bus of this sort. The two most common local I/O buses are the VESA Local Bus (VLB) and the Peripheral Component Interconnect Bus (PCI).
    So Bob, what do we have for our winners today?
    Each one will recieve a jar from the Sun Microsystems in which they can store their java files. And the unique thing about these jars is that htey can expand or shrink to hold various number of files!
    Last edited by hard candy; 04-29-2006 at 06:51 AM.
    __________________________________________________ _______________________________________
    Bigboogie on boogienights.net:
    Ammo case
    Asus 8N32 SLI MB
    AMD Athlon x2 3800+
    2 GB Patriot Signature 400 DDR
    160 GB Hitachi 7200 IDE
    2 x-250 Seagate SATA2
    EVGA Nvidia 7900GT
    Dell 2007WFP
    Logitech 5.1 speakers
    Logitech MX1000 mouse
    Dell USB keyboard
    NEC 3500 DVD-RW
    Benq 1655 DVD-RW



    (God bless tax refunds)

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    SF Bay Area, CA
    Posts
    14,936
    Quote Originally Posted by hard candy
    The other I/O buses (including VLB and PCI) are 32 bits wide. The memory and processor buses on Pentium and higher PCs are 64 bits wide.
    There are a couple of sort-of-exceptions to this.

    PCI-X (used in servers and high-end workstations) is 64 bits wide.

    PCIe (aka PCI Express) is serial, IIRC (1 bit wide per "x" rating -- so an x1 slot would be 1 bit wide, an x16 slot would be 16 bits wide, and an x4 slot would be 4 bits wide).

    Dual channel DDR memory is 128 bits wide (but it's just two 64-bit DDR channels, so maybe that doesn't count as a different width ).

    The address bus is the set of lines that carry information about where in memory the data is to be transferred to or from.
    The address lines may also be "duplexed" on the data lines. You would have two different types of bus transactions; an address transaction and a data transaction -- and one more pin to differentiate the transaction types.

    But most of that's minor nitpicking.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Transplanted from beautiful La Quinta, CA to Long Beach, CA...there are no stars here at night!
    Posts
    1,240
    Quote Originally Posted by bwkaz
    But most of that's minor nitpicking.
    Hey! Some people make their career...uh...never mind.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •