A typist is entering text on keyboard at the rate of 30 words per minute. if each word is 6 characters long on average, what ban
dwidth in bits per second between the keyboard and main memory is required to transmit the information? a space is also a character. assume that each word is followed by a space?
In the field of computers, bandwidth refers to the maximum rate of data transfer; in this particular case, we are talking about data bandwidth in bits/seg, to calculate it we follow these steps:
Find the number of letters per minute: We have 30 words per minute and each word is made of 6 letters, therefore, the amount of letters without spaces is -> 30 * 6 = 180 letters/min
Find the number of characters per minute: If each word is separated by space we will have 29 spaces because the last word doesn't need space. To find the total amount of characters we add letters and spaces -> 180 + 29 = 209 characters per minute
Find the number of bits: In a standard computer each character in the ASCII format is made out of 8 bits, therefore, the total number of bits is equal to the total number of characters multiply by the bits per character -> 209 * 8 = 1672 bits/min
Find the bandwidth in bits/seg: To complete the process we convert our previous result of bits/min to bits/seg -> 1672/60 = 27.867 bits/seg
<em>Alan Shugart assigned David L. Noble to lead the development of "a reliable and inexpensive system for loading microcode into IBM System/370 mainframes" using a process called Initial Control Program Load (ICPL). </em>
