This Computer Awareness quiz on Basics of Computers and Generations puts 12 multiple-choice questions to you, the verified MCQs published with GK24's note on the topic. Every question carries a full explanation of why the correct option is right and why the other options are wrong, so you learn the fact behind the answer rather than the letter. Attempt it right after reading the note, keep to the timer, and use the explanations at the end to mark what needs another look. Sit it again before the exam as a quick revision of the topic.
12 questions with answers and explanations
Who is known as the Father of the Computer?
He designed the Difference Engine and then the Analytical Engine, and the Analytical Engine contained the logical parts of a modern computer: a store for holding numbers, a mill for calculating, punched-card input and a printed output.
Read the full explanation →Vacuum tubes were used as the main electronic component in which generation of computers?
Machines such as ENIAC, EDVAC and UNIVAC-I ran on thousands of vacuum tubes, which made them enormous, power-hungry and dependent on constant cooling.
Read the full explanation →The transistor, which defined second-generation computers, was invented at which laboratory?
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley demonstrated the transistor there in 1947, and the three shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for it.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is regarded as the first commercially available electronic computer?
It was the first electronic computer built to be sold to customers rather than used only in a laboratory, and it was famously put to work on census and business data processing.
Read the full explanation →In which year was the Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, introduced?
The Intel 4004 placed an entire processing unit on a single chip for the first time in a commercial product, and that step marks the beginning of the fourth generation of computers, built on very large scale integration.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is a volatile memory?
Random access memory holds the programs and data the processor is working on at that moment, and it is volatile: the instant the power supply is cut, everything stored in it disappears.
Read the full explanation →How many bits make one nibble?
A bit is the smallest unit of data, holding a single binary 0 or 1. Four bits together form a nibble, which is exactly half a byte, and a nibble is convenient because it maps neatly to one hexadecimal digit.
Read the full explanation →Which unit of the CPU decodes instructions and directs the working of the other units without performing any calculation itself?
It fetches each instruction from memory, decodes it, and then issues signals that tell the other parts of the system what to do and when.
Read the full explanation →Integrated circuits were the defining electronic component of which generation of computers?
The integrated circuit packs many transistors and other components onto a single silicon chip, and computers built on it were far smaller, cheaper and more reliable than their predecessors.
Read the full explanation →PARAM 8000, India's first indigenously developed supercomputer, was built by which organisation?
PARAM 8000 was unveiled in 1991 under the leadership of Vijay Bhatkar, and it made India one of the small group of countries building their own supercomputers.
Read the full explanation →The concept of the stored program, on which the architecture of modern computers is based, is credited to whom?
He set out the idea that a computer should keep its instructions in the same memory as its data, so that a program could be loaded and changed like any other information instead of being wired into the machine.
Read the full explanation →Which type of read-only memory can have its contents erased by exposure to ultraviolet light?
A chip of this kind has a small quartz window, and shining ultraviolet light through it clears the stored contents so the chip can be programmed again.
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