Computer Fundamentals and System Concepts

A dumb terminal is a computer terminal that consists mostly of just a display monitor and a keyboard (and perhaps a mouse as well). It has no internal CPU (central processing unit) and thus, has little or no processing power.

Integrated circuits are known as the brain of a computer.

EKA is an Indian supercomputer developed by C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) in collaboration with Tata Sons. It was ranked as the world's fourth fastest supercomputer in 2007.

 Yes, device drivers are an example of system software.

 There is no uncertainty involved in defining the outputs of the system knowing the inputs.

Named after New Mexico's state bird. It has reached the milestone of 1.026 petaflop/s

The Intel Pentium bug (1994) was a floating-point division error in the processor's Floating Point Unit (FPU). The bug caused incorrect results for certain division operations. Cache is memory storage. Socket is the processor interface. The bug definitely existed and was a major issue for Intel.

A scanner is an input device that converts physical documents to digital format. It cannot execute code or transmit viruses. Viruses can spread through floppy diskettes (boot sector viruses), email attachments, and internet downloads. Scanners are input-only devices with no data writing capability.

Degaussing is the process of reducing or eliminating magnetic fields. It is used to erase magnetic media like floppy disks, hard drives, and to demagnetize CRT monitors. It is not a CPU attachment, medical software, or method for creating magnetic media.

The first Intel Celeron processors (Covington and Mendocino cores) lacked L2 cache memory, which significantly reduced performance compared to the full Pentium II processors they were derived from. Without L2 cache, the CPU had to wait longer for data from main RAM, causing bottlenecks. The later Celeron models added on-die L2 cache, which improved performance.

An operating system provides both security mechanisms (access controls, authentication, permissions) to protect against threats AND confidentiality (ensuring unauthorized users cannot access data). These are fundamental OS responsibilities in multi-user and networked environments.

Operating systems are typically supplied with hardware - either pre-installed on computers (like Windows on PCs, macOS on Macs) or bundled for installation. Middleware and firmware serve different purposes and are not the primary distribution method for OS.

The operating system's loader component loads programs from disk into memory for execution. Assemblers convert assembly code, compilers compile source code, and debuggers help find bugs - none of these handle the actual loading process. The OS manages program loading as part of its core functions.

CP/M (Control Program/Monitor) was developed by Gary Kildall in 1974 for the Intel 8080 microprocessor. It was one of the first widely-used operating systems for microcomputers. The 8086 and 8088 came later, while 80286 was from the subsequent generation.