Section 16.2
Review Questions
Characteristics of Buses
  1. What are the three major groups of wires in a bus?
answer...
  1. data wires
  2. address wires
  3. control wires
  1. Which group of wires would tell the bus what the desired operation is, such as read or write?
answer...
the control wires
  1. What does it mean to multiplex data values on a bus?
answer...
It means to break a data value up into chunks of bits and send these chunks over the bus in successive segments of time. For example, to send a 16-bit value over an 8-bit bus, the first 8 bits of the value are sent, and then the second 8 bits are sent in the next bus operation.
  1. Why do computer hardware makers choose to use multiplexing when it slows down the computer?
answer...
because bus wires are expensive so having a narrower bus makes the computer more affordable
  1. What are the two kinds of multiplexing?
answer...
  1. time multiplexing
  2. device multiplexing
  1. What is it called when the ultimate in multiplexing is used, where there is only one data wire in the bus and bits are sent over it one at a time?
answer...
a serial bus
  1. If there is more than one data wire, what kind of a bus is it?
answer...
a parallel bus
  1. Why could the network be considered a bus?
answer...
because it is a serial data connection between components that functions very much like an internal bus