C SC 100 Exam 1 Study Guide
Winter 2010
The first exam is Wednesday, January 27. It will be closed-book, closed-notes. It is worth 75 points, or 15% of your course grade. You will
have the entire class period to take the exam. The exam will be a combination of multiple choice, matching and short
answer questions.
Note: I hand out two versions of the exam. They differ only in the order of questions.
Classmates on your left and right
will have the other version.
Resources
- A complete set of lecture notes is available on the web
at
http://faculty.otterbein.edu/PSanderson/COMP100/schedule.html. We did not cover every single topic, but you should start by reviewing these.
My exam topics are drawn mainly from the notes.
- Read the textbook. Read the posted lecture
notes for a chapter first, then re-read/review that chapter. There are topics in the book that are not
covered in the notes, and there will be few if any questions over those.
- Questions at the end of each chapter: Multiple Choice and True-False. Work through
these questions. You will see some questions like them on the exam.
- Your journal comments, available at
http://faculty.otterbein.edu/PSanderson/COMP100/journals.html. These are my guide to what resonates with you and I may draw questions from them.
Things you should know, by category, in the order we covered them:
Introduction
- Definition of "computer"
- cell phone use illustrates many of the major topics of this course: the components, network, databases, software, ethics
Video - Giant Brains
- computer origins and history from Jacquard looms to Babbage to ENIAC to today
- Jacquard looms were like "stored program" computers because the patterns of holes in punched cards determined the woven pattern; change the cards, different patterns
- Charles Babbage designed computers in the 1840's with his Difference engine and Analytical engine (never built).
- Ada Augusta Byron was the world's first computer programmer because she designed instructions to control Babbage's
Analytical engine
- Before World War II, "computer" was defined as a person. After the war, it was defined as a machine
- Konrad Zuse developed an electro-mechanical computer using relays around 1938 in Germany
- The ENIAC was an 1940's electronic computer built from vacuum tubes, which were 1000 times faster than relays
- Mathematician John von Neumann came up with the architecture for modern computers: the processor, the memory to
hold both data and instructions, and input / output devices for communication
- Alan Turing is most well known for the Turing test:
If you converse using keyboard and monitor with remote entity and think it to be human, then if
it turns out to be a machine the machine can be considered to have intelligence
Chapter 2 - Understanding the Parts
- Generations of electronic computers: vacuum tubes, then transistors, then integrated circuits (chips)
- "Moore's Law" says the number of elements on a fixed size chip can be doubled about every two years. Smaller, more powerful, faster!
- how to count using binary numbers
- what kinds of things are stored in binary (everything!)
- units of measure such as bits, bytes, hertz, kilo-, mega-, giga-
- typical input and output devices
- major components of the system unit
- Main processor is called Central Processing Unit (CPU) and it runs at 2-3 gigahertz (GHz)
- main memory is very fast but "volatile", loses contents when shut off.
- Flash memory, disk drives, CDs, DVDs are all non-volatile.
- some basics of how digital cameras work
- some basics of how monitors and printers work
- the RGB and CMY color systems for monitors and printers, respectively
- Images compressed using JPEG, sound compressed using MP3. Both reduce to 1/10 original size
but information is lost ("lossy").
Chapter 3 - Using the Internet
- Internet originated in 1969 with the ARPANET
- The Web was invented in 1989, 20 years later
- Internet is a
delivery service like FedEx. The Web as one type of package it can deliver.
- Email, chat, instant messaging, file downloading, online games, and online news
all were available on the Internet before the Web
- Newer web services: Webcasts, blogs, wiki, social
networking, e-commerce and VoIP.
- Web browsers and servers communicate using the HTTP protocol. HTTPS is "secure" HTTP,
so you can safely transmit private data.
- Search engines have two parts: (1) web "spiders" that automatically request web pages and then catalog
their contents into a database, and (2) the part that searches the database
for content that matches your request.
- Cookies are little files on your hard drive put there by web sites. They contain information
about your past use of their site. Most people consider them convenient and harmless
- Spyware is software that monitors your computer usage. Some is harmless but annoying
like adware. Some is harmful because it logs your
keystrokes and can steal private data you type.
- Every computer on the Internet has a unique numeric address called an IP address
- The DNS service translates text addresses like www.amazon.com into
their correct IP addresses.
- Wired access to the Internet includes: dialup, DSL, Cable, and LAN. Dialup is slow,
DSL and Cable offer comparable performance, and LAN available within an organization
- Wireless access to the Internet includes: satellite, cell-based, and Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is
only an indirect connection
- Web pages are written in a language called Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML.
- Web browsers translate the HTML into what is displayed.
Study hard and good luck!