Chapter 9: Data Transmission

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. In practical terms, parallel data transmission is sent:
a. over short distances only c. over any distance
b. usually over long distances d. usually over a coaxial cable


ANS: A

2. The five-level teletype code was invented by:
a. the Morkum Company c. Western Union
b. the Teletype Company d. Emile Baudot


ANS: D

3. Data codes are also called:
a. character codes c. they do not have any other name
b. character sets d. both a and b


ANS: C

4. Digital data that is not being used to carry characters is called:
a. FIGS data c. numerical data
b. binary data d. all of the above


ANS: B

5. Character codes include:
a. alphanumeric characters c. graphic control characters
b. data link control characters d. all of the above


ANS: D

6. ASCII stands for:
a. American Standard Character-set 2
b. American Standard Code for Information Interchange
c. American Standard Code 2
d. Alphanumeric Standard Code for Information Interchange


ANS: B

7. BS, FF, and CR are examples of:
a. nonstandard character codes c. control characters
b. escape characters d. none of the above


ANS: C

8. LF stands for:
a. Line Feed c. Line Forward
b. Link Feed d. Link Forward


ANS: A

9. UART stands for:
a. Universal Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter
b. Unidirectional Asynchronous Receiver-Transmitter
c. Unaltered Received Text
d. Universal Automatic Receiver for Text


ANS: A

10. In asynchronous transmission, the transmitter and receiver are:
a. frame-by-frame synchronized using the data bits
b. frame-by-frame synchronized using a common clock
c. frame-by-frame synchronized using the start and stop bits
d. not synchronized at all, hence the name "asynchronous"


ANS: C

11. In asynchronous transmission, the time between consecutive frames is:
a. equal to zero c. equal to the start and stop bit-times
b. equal to one bit-time d. not a set length


ANS: D

12. In synchronous transmission, the frames are:
a. about the same length as ten asynchronous frames
b. much longer than asynchronous frames
c. 128 bytes long
d. 1024 bytes long


ANS: B

13. Synchronous transmission is used because:
a. no start and stop bits means higher efficiency
b. it is cheaper than asynchronous since no UARTS are required
c. it is easier to implement than asynchronous
d. all of the above


ANS: A

14. In synchronous transmission, the receiver "syncs-up" with the transmitter by using:
a. the clock bits c. the CRC bits
b. the data bits d. a separate clock line


ANS: B

15. To maintain synchronization in synchronous transmission:
a. long strings of 1s and 0s must not be allowed
b. transmission must stop periodically for resynchronization
c. the clock circuits must be precisely adjusted
d. the channel must be noise-free


ANS: A

16. BISYNC:
a. is an IBM product c. requires the use of DLE
b. is a character-oriented protocol d. all of the above


ANS: D

17. HDLC:
a. is an IBM product c. is identical to SDLC
b. is a bit-oriented protocol d. all of the above


ANS: B

18. The use of flags in SDLC requires:
a. "bit-stuffing" c. FEC
b. different flags at either end of a frame d. ARQ


ANS: A

19. The initials ARQ are used to designate:
a. automatic request for resynchronization c. automatic receiver queue
b. automatic request for retransmission d. automatic request for queue


ANS: B

20. ARQ is used to:
a. correct bit errors c. put data into a temporary buffer
b. correct synchronization problems d. none of the above


ANS: A

21. FEC stands for:
a. Fixed Error Control c. Forward Error Correction
b. Forward Error Control d. False Error Condition


ANS: C

22. VRC is another name for:
a. FEC c. LRC
b. ARQ d. parity


ANS: D

23. CRC stands for:
a. Control Receiver Code c. Cyclic Redundancy Check
b. Correct Received Character d. Cycle Repeat Character


ANS: C

24. Huffman codes:
a. allow errors to be detected but not corrected
b. allow errors to be detected and corrected
c. allow alphanumeric data to be corrected
d. allow alphanumeric data to be compressed


ANS: D

25. Run-length encoding is used to:
a. encrypt data c. correct data
b. compress data d. none of the above


ANS: B

26. Public-key encryption:
a. allows the use of digital signatures c. avoids the "password problem"
b. is used to convey symmetric keys d. all of the above


ANS: D

27. SDLC stands for:
a. Synchronous Data Link Control c. Synchronous Data Link Character
b. Synchronous Data Line Control d. Synchronous Data Line Character


ANS: A

28. HDLC is:
a. a bit-oriented protocol c. an ISO standard
b. based on SDLC d. all of the above


ANS: D

COMPLETION

1. Parallel transmission can be used only for ____________________ distances.

ANS: short

2. The term "baud" was named after Emil ____________________.

ANS: Baudot

3. Data codes are also called ____________________ codes.

ANS: character

4. The ____________________ code is a 7-bit code commonly used in communication between personal
computers.

ANS: ASCII

5. The two letters ____________________ designate the code character used to advance a printer to the next
page.

ANS: FF

6. An asynchronous frame begins with the ____________________ bit.

ANS: start

7. An asynchronous frame ends with the ____________________ bit.

ANS: stop

8. At the end of an asynchronous frame, the line will be at the ____________________ level.

ANS:
mark
binary 1

9. An integrated circuit called a ____________________ is used in an asynchronous communication system
to convert between parallel and serial data.

ANS: UART

10. When receiving digital data, ____________________ are used to hold data until they can be read.

ANS: buffers

11. Synchronous communication is more ____________________ than asynchronous since there are fewer
"overhead" bits.

ANS: efficient

12. There must be sufficient 1-to-0 ____________________ to maintain synchronization in synchronous
transmission.

ANS: transitions

13. Clock sync is derived from the stream of ____________________ bits in synchronous transmission.

ANS: data

14. In the ____________________ protocol, each frame begins with at least two SYN characters.

ANS: BISYNC

15. In HDLC, each frame starts with an 8-bit ____________________.

ANS: flag

16. The first eight bits of an SDLC frame are ____________________.

ANS: 01111110

17. BCC stands for ____________________ check character.

ANS: block

18. DLE stands for data link ____________________.

ANS: escape

19. HDLC uses bit-____________________ to prevent accidental flags.

ANS: stuffing

20. ____________________ errors cause many consecutive bits to be bad.

ANS: Burst

21. FEC stands for ____________________ error correction.

ANS: forward

22. An ____________________ scheme corrects errors by requiring the retransmission of bad blocks.

ANS: ARQ

23. Parity fails when an ____________________ number of bits are in error.

ANS: even

24. CRC codes are particularly good at detecting ____________________ errors.

ANS: burst

25. Huffman coding and run-length encoding are examples of data ____________________.

ANS: compression

26. A ____________________ is an encoding scheme that is not public in order to protect data.

ANS: cipher

27. A ____________________ is often used to generate an encryption key because it is easier to remember.

ANS: password

28. If the key is ____________________ enough, private-key encryption can be quite secure.

ANS: long

29. Messages cannot be ____________________ using a public key.

ANS: decrypted

30. Because it is ____________________-intensive, public-key encryption can be slow.

ANS: computation

SHORT ANSWER

1. How many different characters could be encoded using a six-bit code?

ANS:
64

2. What is the numerical difference between ASCII 'a' and ASCII 'A' if you treat them as hexadecimal (hex)
numbers?

ANS:
20 hex (32 decimal)

3. The ASCII codes for the characters '0' through '9' are what hex numbers?

ANS:
30H to 39H

4. If an asynchronous frame is used to send ASCII characters in the form of bytes (8 bits), what is the
shortest time it could take to send 1000 characters if each bit in a frame is 1 msec long?

ANS:
10 seconds

5. Suppose an asynchronous frame holds 8 bits of data, a parity bit, and two stop bits (it could happen).
Calculate the efficiency of the communication system.

ANS:
66.7%

6. Suppose a synchronous frame has 16 bits of non-data in the front and a 16-bit BCC at the end. The frame
carries 1024 bytes of actual data. Calculate the efficiency of the communication system.

ANS:
97.0%