Hardware

The processor status register determines whether the CPU executes in privileged mode and has access to privileged registers. (correct)

b. The CPU stores essential data in registers such as the currently executed instruction, the program counter, the stack pointer, or the current time of the day.

c. RISC CPUs support powerful CPU instructions in order to reduce the size of the machine code (reduced instruction size CPUs).

d. The size of the registers of a CPU (e.g., 8 bits) does not necessarily imply the size of the address bus (e.g., 16 bits). (correct)

An interrupt number is used to index into the interrupt vector in order to find the kernel function handling this type of interrupt. (correct)

b. Interrupts and signals both interrupt the current control flow of a process. While interrupts are handled by the kernel running in system mode, signals are handled by program code executed in the context of a process in user mode. (correct)

c. System calls are identified by a system call number, which is used to index into the system call table in order to find the kernel function implementing the requested system call. (correct)

d. Interrupt and signal masks can be used to temporarily suppress the handling of certain interrupts or signals. e. CPU registers used while processing interrupts must be restored to their original values before continuing with the interrupted control flow. (correct)

Cache misses cause CPUs to wait, which slows down the execution of programs and hence cache misses should be avoided. (correct)

b. In memory data organization avoiding locality leads to faster program execution.

c. The memory hierarchy expresses a trade-off between memory size and speed. (correct)

d. When using write through caches, the data stored in memory may not always reflect the state of the computation.

<p>A function pointer is stored in the text segment.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>a. Memory allocation and deallocation on the stack is very efficient.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>b. The control bus is used to transfer the control flow of a program from a CPU to I/O devices.</p> Signup and view all the answers