Computer Hardware and Software Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The software is Diagram Designer.

Diagram Designer is a free vector graphics editor for drawing flowcharts, UML class diagrams, illustrations and slide shows, with a library of ready-made shapes and connectors.

The other three are for different jobs. Falco Icon Studio is an icon editor for designing small program icons. Ashampoo Photo Optimizer automatically improves digital photos. Mobile Video for iPod converts video files to play on Apple's iPod. None of them is meant for flowcharts.

Answer: D

Correct answer: The area where all of the processing takes place

The CPU fetches and executes the instructions, which is what processing means. Driving the monitor is the video card's work and regulating power the supply's.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Their protective sleeves

A 5¼ inch diskette has an open media window, so the sleeve is what keeps dust and fingerprints off the recording surface.

Answer: D

Correct answer: 25 pin female parallel connector

On the PC the printer port is a 25-pin female parallel connector; the printer end of the cable is the 36-pin Centronics connector.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Config.sys

BUFFERS is a device and memory setting read by DOS as it loads, so it belongs in CONFIG.SYS. AUTOEXEC.BAT runs afterwards, once the system is already configured.

Answer: B

Correct answer: sound card (or motherboard if sound is integrated with it)

The thin analogue cable carries audio from the drive to the sound card, so that a music CD can be played without the data passing through the bus.

Answer: C

Correct answer: type III

A Type III card is 10.5 mm thick, enough to house a miniature hard disk. Type I at 3.3 mm holds memory and Type II at 5 mm modems and network cards.

Answer: C

Correct answer: 011

Three jumpers give three bits, and 3 in binary is 011:

\[ 0\times 4 + 1\times 2 + 1\times 1 = 3 \]

So the two low jumpers are shorted and the high one left open.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Direct input method

Direct input reads data that is already in a form the machine can process - a bar code, a magnetic stripe, a mark sheet - without anyone transcribing it. Indirect input requires it to be keyed in first.

Answer: C

Correct answer: A device is recognised and configured automatically when connected

Plug and play means the operating system detects a newly connected device, identifies it, and loads or obtains the appropriate driver automatically, without the user configuring anything. It is easy to underrate because it is now universal. Before it, adding a card meant setting jumpers or switches by hand to assign an interrupt request line, a DMA channel and an address range, and choosing values that clashed with an existing device produced failures that were exceedingly difficult to diagnose. It requires cooperation between the firmware, the operating system and the device itself, which must be able to report its identity. USB was designed around it and added hot swapping, so a device can be connected and removed while the machine runs. A driver is still needed, but the system now finds it - from its own store or over the internet - rather than requiring a disc.