Technology Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The modem performs modulation and demodulation.

It impresses digital data onto an analogue carrier for transmission and recovers it at the far end. Coaxial cable and fibre are transmission media, and a router forwards packets.

Answer: A

SMP stands for symmetric multiprocessing.

Two or more identical processors share the same main memory and are controlled by one operating system, any of them able to run any task. Nearly every modern multi-core computer works this way.

Answer: A

MICR stands for magnetic ink character recognition.

The characters along the bottom of a cheque are printed in ink containing iron oxide, which can be read magnetically even through a signature or a stamp. Banks use it to sort cheques at high speed.

Answer: C

Output devices are commonly called terminals.

The word originally meant a keyboard and screen at the end of a line to a central computer - the terminus of the connection - and came to be used for the display end generally.

Answer: C

SLIP stands for Serial Line Internet Protocol.

It carried IP packets over a serial link and was the standard way of dialling into the internet before PPP, which added error detection, authentication and dynamic addressing, replaced it.

Answer: A

System software interacts with the hardware.

The operating system and its drivers are the only software that touches the devices directly; applications ask the operating system to do it for them, through system calls. This keeps applications portable and the machine protected.

Answer: A

A modem is used mostly for connecting to the internet.

It converts the computer's digital data into a form the telephone, cable or fibre line can carry, and converts the incoming signal back. Every household broadband connection has one.

Answer: D

Mouse, trackball and joystick are pointing devices.

They translate hand movement into movement of a cursor on screen, which is what makes a graphical interface usable. Douglas Engelbart demonstrated the first mouse in 1968.

Answer: B

Ctrl+M inserts a new slide in PowerPoint.

Ctrl+N opens a new presentation, Ctrl+V pastes, and Ctrl+L left-aligns text.

Answer: A

Tiny droplets of coloured ink sprayed through a nozzle belong to the inkjet printer.

The droplets are ejected either by a heating element that boils the ink, or by a piezoelectric crystal that flexes. Inkjets give good colour cheaply, and are slower than lasers.