Computer Fundamentals Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Correct answer: Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage is called the father of the computer for his Analytical Engine, designed from 1837 with a mill for calculation, a store for numbers, and punched cards carrying both program and data - the structure a modern computer still has. Tim Berners-Lee invented the web and Vint Cerf co-designed TCP/IP.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Vint Cerf

Vint Cerf, with Bob Kahn, designed the TCP/IP protocols that let separate networks interconnect as one, which is what made the internet possible; the two are jointly called its fathers. Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine and Martin Cooper made the first handheld mobile phone call.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Binary

Every circuit in a computer distinguishes just two states - off and on, low and high - so all data is stored as binary patterns of 0s and 1s. Decimal, octal and hexadecimal are notations people use to write those patterns conveniently; hexadecimal is popular because one digit stands for exactly four bits.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Arithmetic logic unit

ALU stands for arithmetic logic unit - the part of the processor that performs the arithmetic (add, subtract, multiply) and the logical operations (AND, OR, NOT and comparisons). The control unit decides which operation it performs and supplies the operands.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Graphical user Interface

GUI is a graphical user interface - windows, icons, menus and a pointer, operated with a mouse or a touch screen. It replaced the command line, where every instruction had to be typed and remembered.

Answer: B

Correct answer: File Server

A file server holds documents, images, video and other files centrally and serves them to the machines on the network, handling the storage, permissions and backup in one place. A print server manages printers, and a web server delivers pages over HTTP.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Interactive computer

In interactive working the user types at a keyboard, the machine responds at once, and the next entry depends on that response - a conversation. Batch processing accepts a job and returns results later with no dialogue at all, and time sharing describes how the processor is divided between users rather than the style of the exchange.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Dump

A dump writes out the contents of memory, or of some part of the machine, so that its state can be examined - usually after a failure, so the cause can be traced. The word describes emptying the contents out for inspection, not altering them.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Frame

On a data link the unit of transmission is a frame: the packet handed down from the network layer, wrapped in a header carrying the source and destination hardware addresses and a trailer carrying a checksum. What travels on the wire is the frame; the packet is what it encloses.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Interrogation

Putting a question to a file from a terminal and receiving the matching records back is interrogation - querying the file rather than updating it. “Interactive” describes the general style of working at a terminal; interrogation is the particular act of asking the file a question.