CS439: Principles of Computer Systems

Discussion Section 5 Problem Set

Due in Section on Friday, February 28, 2024

The problem set must be completed before section and brought to section. To ensure that your problem set is turned in correctly and that you receive credit for discussion section, you must follow these guidelines exactly.

Include the following header at the top of your file:

Discussion Section Problem Set #:
Student Name:
EID:

You may either type your answers or write them by hand, but you must have a copy with you in discussion section.

In discussion section, your TA will check that you made a good effort on the problem set, you are participating in the discussions in section, and you are ready and able to answer when called upon. If all of those are true, you will receive credit for discussion section that day. Note that a "good effort" on the problem set includes that all answers are in words unique to you and not copied from anywhere else, including the slide deck.

What is a virtual address? What is a physical address? How do they relate to each other?
What causes a page fault? What is the end result for the running process?
What causes a memory exception? What is the end result for the running process?
Assume you have a virtual memory system that uses paging. Is the system vulnerable to internal and/or external fragmentation? Explain.
In class, we discussed that paging may increase internal fragmentation. What is internal fragmentation? What steps could you take to reduce it?
Consider a paging system with 16 pages and a page size of 1024 bytes. The system has 32 frames of physical memory.
1. How many bits are in a physical address?
2. How many bits represent the page number?
3. How many bits are in the complete virtual address?
4. What size are the page frames?