INFO1150 Guided Reading Assignment Chapter 1-1

Read Chapter 1, pages 1 to 10. For each question, type in your answer to the following questions in the
spaces provided after each question.
1)

What feature of a computer makes it such a useful tool to a wide variety of tasks?

2)

What does CPU stand for, and what is its main job?

3)

What are the two main parts of a CPU, and what does each part do?

4)

Briefly describe what happens in each step in the fetch-decode-execute cycle of the CPU.

5) What does RAM stand for and what is its main function?

6) Memory is divided into sections made up of groups of eight switches. What is another name for one
of these individual switches?

7) A collection of eight of these switches is called a ? __________________________8) How does the computer keep track of where it stores data in RAM?

9) What are the two general categories of software that run on a computer?

10) What is the main function of an operating system?

11) What does the term multi-tasking mean, and how does an operating system manage to do this?

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12) What exactly is a computer program?

13) What is the definition of an algorithm?

14) What is the only language that a CPU can understand, and what are the characters in this languages
alphabet?

15) What was the original intended use for the Java programming language when it was created in 1991?

16) A unique feature of the Java language is that its source code is not compiled into a machine language
for any specific CPU. Instead it is compiled to an intermediate language called called java byte code.
How is this java byte code then run on a CPU?

16) When the original use for Java did not work out, what did the development team do with it instead?

17) What is the difference between a Java application and a Java applet?

18) Can a java applet do harmful things to your computer, such as re-format your hard drive without your
permission? Why not?

19) What are the five common elements of any computer programming language?

20) How many key words are there in the Java programming language, and what is the rule regarding the
letter case in which you have to use when coding with them?
21) Java key words are also known as reserved words. What does reserved mean in this case?

22) In Code Listing 1 on page 10, count up the total number of Java key words used in the program. How
many are there?

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