In a computer system, a single 16-bit memory location contains the hexadecimal value 0x9F3C. Which of the following statements most accurately describes how this value is represented and interpreted by the hardware?
The hardware physically stores the characters '9', 'F', '3', and 'C' as ASCII/Unicode text values inside a 16-bit register, and can only process them using text-formatting algorithms.
The system must convert the binary representation to the denary integer 407644076440764 before any execution can take place, as computer CPUs cannot process base-2 or base-16 values directly.
It is stored physically in memory as a sequence of high and low electronic states representing the binary pattern 1001 1111 0011 1100, and its meaning (whether an instruction, an integer, or an address) depends entirely on how it is retrieved and interpreted by the CPU.
It is split into two strict parts: the high byte 0x9F must represent an instruction opcode, while the low byte 0x3C must represent a memory address, because instructions and data cannot be represented in the same physical binary format.
27 exam-style questions on AQA GCSE Computer Science Number bases. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.