Introduction to Computers and Programming Quiz

Secondary storage: holds data for long periods, programs are stored here and loaded to main memory as needed

Disk drives: data is magnetically encoded onto a spinning circular disk

Solid state drives: faster than disk drives, no moving parts, data is stored in solid state memory

Flash memory: portable, no physical disk, data is stored in electrical charges

Input devices: data is collected from people and other devices, examples include keyboard, mouse, touchscreen, scanner, and camera

Disk drives are input devices as they load programs into the main memory

Output devices: produce data for other people or devices, examples include video display and printer

Disk drives and USB drives can be considered output devices as data is sent to them to be saved

Software: controls everything a computer does

Application software: makes a computer useful for every day tasks, examples are word processing, email, games, and web browsers

System software: controls and manages basic operations, examples are the operating system and utility programs

Software development tools: used to create, modify, and test software programs

Data in a computer is stored as binary sequences of 0s and 1s

A byte is a unit of data that can store a letter or small number, and is made up of eight bits

Each bit can hold a positive or negative charge, and their on/off pattern represents data

Computers use binary numbering system, with each digit representing a power of 2, and each byte can hold values between 0 and 255

Characters are stored in binary form as numeric codes, with ASCII and Unicode being common coding schemes

Advanced number storage techniques include encoding negative numbers using two's complement and real numbers using floating-point notation

Digital data, such as images and music, are stored as binary numbers representing pixels and samples respectively

A program works by the CPU performing simple operations on data and understanding instructions in machine language

Each program must be copied from secondary memory to RAM each time it is executed and goes through the fetch-decode-execute cycle

Assembly language is easier for programmers to work with as it uses short words for instructions instead of binary numbers

High-level languages allow for simple creation of powerful and complex programs without needing to know how the CPU works

Keywords, operators, and syntax are used to write programs in high-level languages and are translated into machine language by compilers and interpreters.

The input() function in programming reads user input from the keyboard and returns the data as a string.

Users are prompted to enter a value with a given instruction.

The input() function always returns a string, but it can be converted to other data types using built-in functions.

The int() and float() functions can be used to convert a string to an integer or a floating-point number, respectively.

Type conversion only works if the input string is a valid numeric value; otherwise, an exception is thrown.

When performing calculations, Python follows a specific order of precedence, and parentheses can be used to force the order of operations.

The exponentiation operator (**), the exponent operator, and the remainder operator (%), also called the modulus operator, are used for raising numbers to a power and for converting times and distances, respectively.

When converting mathematical expressions to programming statements, multiplication operators might need to be added, and parentheses might be required for clarity.

Variables can reference different values while the program is running, and data type conversions can be performed during reassignment.

In situations where long statements are hard to read, they can be broken into multiple lines using the line continuation character () or the parentheses.

The print() function is used to display output on the screen, and it has various special arguments for customizing the output format, such as delimiters, separators, and format specifiers.

Formatting numbers can be done using the format() function, which allows controlling the display of precision, data type, and various other formatting options.

Magic numbers are unexplained numeric values that appear in the code. They can lead to confusion and make the code harder to maintain. It is generally recommended to assign magic numbers to variables with descriptive names instead.