Chapter 2 Hardware and Software

Front

What is a mainframe computer?

Back

A powerful computer serving several terminals, used for large-scale transaction processing, batch processing, and statistical analysis.

Front

What is a supercomputer?

Back

A large computer with parallel processing to complete highly complex tasks quickly, used in quantum mechanics, weather forecasting, and climate research.

Front

What is MIPS?

Back

Millions of instructions per second, not considered a very accurate measure of performance.

Front

What is FLOPS?

Back

Floating point operations per second, used to compare the speed of supercomputers.

Front

What are the advantages of mainframe computers?

Back

Designed to be reliable, available, and serviceable (RAS), scalable, can store and process large amounts of data, and more than one operating system can be used.

Front

What are the disadvantages of mainframe computers?

Back

Very expensive, require a lot of space, need temperature regulation, require specialist staff for maintenance, and need massive external storage devices.

Front

What is system software?

Back

Any program designed to maintain or operate the computer system.

Front

What is the role of an operating system?

Back

Manages hardware within a computer system, allocates memory, sends data to output devices, responds to input devices, manages files, and handles user log-on and security.

Front

What is a device driver?

Back

Software used to enable communication between the computer system and specific hardware models.

Front

What is a translator in computing?

Back

Software that translates a high-level language program into machine code. Includes compilers and interpreters.