SECTION A — What This Section Covers
Section A contains 10 short 2-mark questions that check the student’s basic conceptual understanding of microprocessors.
It includes definitions, differences, small explanations, register functions, addressing concepts, flags, modes, and peripheral operations.
The topics include:
microprocessor meaning, temporary registers in 8085, BIU address generation in 8086, difference between memory-mapped and I/O-mapped interfacing, role of HOLD & HLDA, 8085 flag register sketch, pipelining in 8086, memory segmentation benefits, operating modes of 8254, and USART functionality.
This section checks the student’s ability to recall core architecture concepts, basic operations, interfacing ideas, and peripheral terms.
SECTION B — What This Section Covers
Section B contains any three long 10-mark questions, focusing on diagrams, explanations and assembly language programming.
Topics include:
functional block diagram of a general microprocessor, opcode fetch timing diagram of 8085, detailed memory segmentation of 8086, 8085 program for block data transfer, and block diagram with explanation of 8237 DMA controller.
This section evaluates a student’s understanding of internal architecture, timing operations, memory organization, data transfer programming, and DMA operations, requiring both diagrammatic and descriptive clarity.
SECTION C — What This Section Covers
Section C requires answering one part from each question (Q3 to Q7) and focuses on advanced design, interfacing, architectures, addressing modes, and instruction-level programming.
Topics include:
generations of microprocessors, absolute decoding with EPROM/RAM interfacing, 8085 pin diagram with explanation, hardware & software interrupts with vectored addresses, execution unit (EU) & bus unit (BU) of 8086, twelve addressing modes of 8086, counting program with delay using HL pair, conditional jump & call instructions with machine cycles, 8253/54 block diagram with interfacing, and 8255 architecture with modes.
This section tests deeper understanding of system design, hardware interfacing, architecture-level functioning, instruction sets, timing, and programming concepts required for working with 8085 and 8086 microprocessors.
