Exam 3: Computer Hardware

The principal drawback of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was its __________ and processing ability.

The central processing unit (CPU) consists of:

The capacity of memory chips is usually expressed in terms of bits. A _______________ is a basic grouping of bits that the computer operates as a single unit.

Personal digital assistants most commonly use which of these technologies?

A _______________ user interface presents a user with icons, bars, buttons, boxes, and other images to initiate computer-based tasks.

Speaker dependent voice recognition systems:

The term "megacomputer" describes a category of extremely powerful computer systems specifically designed for scientific, engineering, and business applications requiring extremely high speeds for massive numeric computations.

One of the major trends in secondary storage has been toward massive capacities using magnetic and optical media.

Which of the following statements about optical disks is true?

Today's corporate buyers seek PCs with network interface cards and/or wireless capabilities.

Computer systems rely on all the following components except _______________.

_______________ computers continue to handle the information processing needs of major corporations and governmental agencies with high transaction processing volumes or complex computational problems.

Most computers today can process program instructions in MIPS, which is ____________________.

The _______________ is the main processing component of a computer system.

_______________ systems include servers used in industrial process-control and manufacturing plants, and they play a major role in computer-aided manufacturing (CAM).

_______________ are sometimes used as front-end computers in order to assist midrange computers in performing telecommunications processing and network management.

Magnetic disks are common forms of secondary storage because they provide fast access and high storage capacity at a reasonable cost.

RAID disk units provide fault tolerant storage capacity because data can be recovered from backup copies stored on other disks should one disk fail.

__________ are some of the more powerful microcomputers; they are used to coordinate telecommunications and resource sharing in small LANs and in Internet and intranet websites.

Midrange systems first became popular as minicomputers for scientific research, instrumentation, engineering analysis, and process monitoring and control.