CS-343 Assignment 1
Spring 2009

The course syllabus gives the reading assignments for the course. This homework assignment should covers the Background_Material web page. If you do not have a copy of the textbook yet (be sure to get the Fourth Edition), you can still do this assignment.

After reading the background material, answer the following questions:

1. How many orders of magnitude bigger than a fluid ounce is a gallon?
2. How many orders of magnitude bigger than a kilogram is a milligram?
3. How many picoseconds are there in a nanosecond?
4. How many nanoseconds are there in a millisecond?
5. I am thinking of a number between 1 and 100. On average, how many yes-no questions would you have to ask to find out what my number is?
6. There are 23 bits in a byte. How many bits are there in a gigabyte of memory?
7. How many bits of storage are there in a 256GB disk drive?
8. How many different values can be representd in a byte of memory?
9. How many bits would it take to represent a number between 1 and 256G?
10. How many bits would it take to represent a number between 0 and one less than 64M?
11. What is the 6-bit two’s complement representation of +1810?
12. What is the 6-bit two’s complement representation of -1810?
13. What is the 12-bit two’s complement representation of -1810?
14. What is the result, in binary, of negating your answer to the previous question?
15. To convert feet to inches, do you mulitply the number of feet by 12 or do you divide by 12?
16. Is one nanosecond 1,000 picoseconds, or is it 0.001 picosecond?
17. How many picoseconds in one-eighth of a nanosecond?
18. How many picoseconds in eight nanoseconds?
19. What is the period of a 1 Hz signal?
20. What is the period of a 1 KHz signal?
21. What is the frequency of a signal with a 2 nsec period?
22. What is the frequency of a signal with a 200 psec period?
23. What is the period of a 2.5 GHz signal?
24. How long does it take a 7200 RPM disk to make one revolution? Give your answer in milliseconds and also in microseconds.
25. What is the decimal equivalent of binary 1111011.01110100? (Answer to two decimal places.)
26. What is the unsigned binary representation of decimal 7.25?
27. What is the binary representation of negative 4 using 8-bit bias-127 notation?
28. What is the result of negating the 4 bit two’s complement number 01012? Answer in both binary and decimal.
29. What is the result of negating the 4 bit two’s complement number 00002? Answer in both binary and decimal.
30. What is the result of negating the 4 bit two’s complement number 10002? Answer in both binary and decimal.

You may submit this assignment either by writing your answers on paper and bringing it to class on the due date or by putting your answers in an email and sending it to me by midnight on the due date.

If you choose the email option:

1. Put your answers in the body of your email message, not in an attachment.
2. Be sure to put your name in your email message!
3. The Subject line must be CS-343 Assignment 1 to avoid my spam filters.
4. Send your email to either Christopher.VickeryATqc.cuny.edu or vickeryATbabbage.cs.qc.cuny.edu — but not to both.

See the course syllabus for grading and late homework policies.