CS 074 The Digital World

Spring 2008
Computer Science Department
The College of Arts and Sciences
Boston College

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Problem Set 2: Numeral Systems

Assigned: Friday January 25, 2008
Due: Thursday January 31, 2008
Points: 7

This is a two-part assignment. The first part is a set of exercises dealing with numeral systems. The second is a set of readings relating to intellectual property. You should use the TextEditor.jar application to create a text file with your solutions to the problems. Please submit your solutions in the usual way through webct.

Numeral Systems

  1. (.5 points) Convert 343 (base 5) to base 10.

  2. (.5 points) Convert 343 (base 10) to base 5.

  3. (.5 points) Convert 343 (base 8) to base 3.

  4. (.5 points) Convert -82 (base 9) to base 13.

  5. (1 points) Convert the signed numeral -82 (base 16) to a two's complement 8-digit base 4 numeral. (NB: In this case, we are using ordinary mathematical notation with a leading minus sign, to denote a negative number, i.e., the quantity 0082 (base 16), negated.)

  6. (.5 points) What is the base 10 sum of the following unsigned numerals: 45 (base 6) + AB (base 12)?

  7. (.5 points) What is the base 10 sum of the following signed (two's complement) numerals: 45 (base 8) + AB (base 16)?

  8. (.5 points) What is the binary sum of the following two's complement binary numerals: 10001011 + 00010001?

Intellectual Property

  1. (2.5 points) Set aside an hour to view Lawrence Lessig's lecture on intellectual property. This is a large (8.4MB) Flash file so it may take a while to download it. Be prepared to discuss it in class.