SSD2_Ex_2

Luzanov_Sergey_IS_138_R

Exercise 2

Question 1. Choosing Microprocessors

The following processors are made by Intel®:

A. Intel® Core™ 2 Q6600 Quad-Core
Processor speed: 2.4 GHz
Level 2 cache: 8MB
System bus: 1066 MHz
Number of cores: 4

B. Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5450
Processor speed: 1.66GHz
Level 2 cache: 2MB 
System bus: 667 MHz

C. Intel® Celeron® 420
Processor speed: 1.6 GHz
Level 2 cache: 512KB
System bus: 800 MHz

You may find the following resources useful:

Intel® Processor Numbers

Tom's Hardware

a. List the processors described above by their price range (from the cheapest to the most expensive).

C B A

b. List the processors described above by their performance (from the best to the worst).

A B C

c. Which of the above processors would be the fastest when used for multi-media production and multi-tasking (running 10 or more applications at the same time)?

A

Question 2. Computer Purchase

Let us assume that you are purchasing a new computer for a specific usage. You need to choose a computer from various available configurations.

Listed below are four different usage cases of a computer (a-d). For each usage case, identify components of the computer configuration that are most important to consider. Explain your answers.

Components to be considered include (but are not limited to):

Monitor size/resolution

Graphics card/video card

Storage devices (for example, DVD-ROM)

Memory (RAM, cache, and hard disk)

Disk controller interfaces (ATA, EIDE)

For example, if a computer were to be used for viewing movies, a DVD-ROM drive is needed since movies are available as CDs and now increasingly as DVDs. A large monitor (about 19”) that supports high resolutions and a video card will also be necessary to enjoy the movie.

a. Simultaneously running a number of programs

Memory

b. Running a speed-critical application

Memory

c. Storing and retrieving huge volumes of data

Storage devices

d. Purchasing a basic configuration, to be upgraded later as needed

Disk controller interfaces

Question 3. File Compression

In this section, you will use a compression algorithm to compress a message. Then you will use a compression application to determine the properties of compression.

1. How does dictionary-based compression work?

Dictionary-based compression on replaces common sequences of characters with a single code word, on symbol, which points to a dictionary of the original characters or to the original occurrence of the word.

Use dictionary-based compression to compress the message below:
sea shells, sea horses, and seals are in the sea.

2. How many bytes does the message above contain (each character is 1 byte including spaces)? 49 bytes.

3. Create a compression dictionary and calculate its size in bytes. #sea.

4. What is the compressed the message? #shells, #horses and seals are in the#.

5. How many bytes did the entire compression use? 8 bytes.

6. Is dictionary-based compression a lossy compression? Explain. No, it’s not. I don’t know how to explain it in English correctly. Copy and paste the entire content of this exercise into Notepad and save it as compress0.txt Compress this file using WinZip or any compression application and name it compress1.zip. If you do not have WinZip application installed on your computer, refer to Appendix B. Downloading WinZip Appendix for directions to download the application.

7. What is the size of the file before and after compression? What is the compression ratio of compress1.zip to the original file? Before: 44 070 264 bytes After: 43 612 868 bytes The compression ratio is 1.04% Compress compress1.zip and name it compress2.zip.

8. What is the compression ratio of compress2.zip to compress1.zip? Explain what is happening. (Hint: think of information that needs to be stored for a compression.) 1% the ratio is down.

9. Is this a lossy or lossless compression? What do you think would happen if you kept on compressing the file successively? It will finally down to 0.

10. Is lossy compression appropriate for compressing images? Is it appropriate for hard disk backups? Provide explanations for both parts. Yes.