CGS 3269 - COMPUTER SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE

SUMMER 2002

MAKEUP ASSIGNMENT

This assignment is not compulsory. Submission of this assignment is voluntary.

The better of two grades will be calculated by comparing the grades on Assignment # 1 and this Makeup Assignment and the lower grade will be dropped.

Handed out: July 18, 2002

Due: July 25, 2002 in class

• On computer 1, all instructions take 10 nsec to execute. On computer 2, they all take 5 nsec to execute. Can you say for certain that computer 2 is faster? Discuss.

• A certain computer can be equipped with 268,435,456 bytes of memory. Why would a manufacturer choose such a peculiar number, instead of an easy-to-remember number like 250,000,000?

• The transfer rate between a CPU and its associated memory is orders of magnitude higher than the mechanical I/O transfer rate. How can this imbalance cause inefficiencies? How can it be alleviated?

• Why do interrupt service routines have priorities associated with them whereas normal procedures do not have priorities?

• Consider a multiprocessor using a shared bus. What happens if two processors try to access the global memory at exactly the same instant?