Computer Network Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Correct answer: \( A + A = A \)

The idempotent law states that combining a variable with itself changes nothing: \[ A + A = A, \qquad A \cdot A = A. \] This is one of the clearest departures from ordinary arithmetic, where \( A + A = 2A \) and \( A \cdot A = A^{2} \). In a two-valued algebra there is no 2 and no square, so the operation simply returns the value unchanged. The other options are the remaining basic identities, each with its own name. \( A + \bar{A} = 1 \) is the complement law, with dual \( A \cdot \bar{A} = 0 \). \( A + 0 = A \) is the identity law, with dual \( A \cdot 1 = A \). And \( A + 1 = 1 \) is the null or annulment law, with dual \( A \cdot 0 = 0 \). Each pair is a dual of the other, obtained by exchanging AND with OR and 0 with 1 - a symmetry that runs through the whole of Boolean algebra and halves the amount to be memorised.

Answer: A

Correct answer: 625

Each line needs one write and one read per frame, so two memory accesses of 100 ns, and the whole frame period is available:

\[ \frac{125\ \mu\text{s}}{2\times 100\ \text{ns}} = \frac{125\times 10^{-6}}{2\times 10^{-7}} = 625 \]

Answer: C

Correct answer: multiplexer

A multiplexer combines several input streams onto one line and separates them again at the far end. A concentrator also shares a line but buffers and forwards rather than dividing it into fixed channels.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Residual error rate

The residual error rate is the proportion of messages that are lost or delivered corrupted out of all those sent - the errors that survive the protocol's own detection and correction.

Answer: A

Correct answer: inserting a '0' in user stream to differentiate it with a flag

The flag that marks a frame boundary is a fixed bit pattern, so the sender inserts a 0 after five consecutive 1s in the data, ensuring the pattern can never appear by accident. The receiver removes the inserted bit, so the data is unchanged.

Answer: C

Correct answer: \( A\bar{B} + \bar{A}B \)

The XOR function is 1 when the two inputs differ, which happens in exactly two cases: A is 1 and B is 0, or A is 0 and B is 1. Written as a sum of products that is \[ A \oplus B = A\bar{B} + \bar{A}B. \] The second option, \( AB + \bar{A}\bar{B} \), is 1 when the inputs are the same, and is therefore the complement - the XNOR function, also called the equivalence or coincidence gate. XOR has properties that make it unusually useful. \( A \oplus 0 = A \) and \( A \oplus 1 = \bar{A} \), so one input acts as a controlled inverter. \( A \oplus A = 0 \), which is why XOR finds the unpaired element in a list and why it underlies simple ciphers and the swap-without-a-temporary trick. In arithmetic it produces the SUM output of a half adder, and cascaded it generates and checks parity bits.

Answer: C

Correct answer: 3

A multiplexer with \( n \) select lines can choose among \( 2^{n} \) inputs, so for eight inputs \[ 2^{n} = 8 \quad\Rightarrow\quad n = 3. \] The three select lines form a binary address: 000 routes input 0 to the output, 001 routes input 1, and so on up to 111 for input 7. The same relation gives 2 select lines for a 4-to-1 multiplexer and 4 for a 16-to-1. It is the identical arithmetic that determines the number of flip-flops in a counter and the number of address lines for a memory, so it is worth being fluent in both directions. Multiplexers are used for far more than data routing. Because a \( 2^{n} \)-to-1 multiplexer can implement any Boolean function of \( n \) variables directly - by wiring the truth table values to its data inputs - it serves as a general-purpose logic element, which is why lookup tables in field-programmable gate arrays are built this way.

Answer: D

Correct answer: American Standard Code for Information Interchange

ASCII is the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a character encoding published in 1963 that assigns a numeric value to each letter, digit and punctuation mark. It is a 7-bit code, giving 128 values: 0 to 31 are control characters such as carriage return and line feed, 32 is the space, 48 to 57 are the digits 0 to 9, 65 to 90 are the capital letters and 97 to 122 the small ones. Two consequences of that layout are worth knowing. The gap of exactly 32 between a capital and its small counterpart means the case of a letter is changed by flipping a single bit. And because the digits begin at 48, a numeric character is converted to its value by subtracting 48. Extended ASCII uses the eighth bit for a further 128 characters. Unicode superseded it for international text, but keeps ASCII as its first 128 code points, which is why the two remain compatible.

Answer: A

Correct answer: n

In stop-and-wait the sender transmits one frame and waits for its acknowledgement before sending the next, so n frames require n acknowledgements. Grouping them is what the sliding-window protocols allow.

Answer: C

Correct answer: 8

A decoder with \(n\) input lines activates one of \(2^n\) outputs, so a 3-to-8 decoder has eight outputs. Exactly one output is asserted at a time, corresponding to the binary value on the three inputs.