Answer to Question 1In a typical network, most devices are not in constant communication with other devices. Someone sitting at a typical networked computer is not constantly pressing the Send button or Receive button every 10 seconds to do their work. Instead, most users of these devices only need to send or receive a communication once in a while, not constantly. Therefore, having point-to-point circuit configurations for all devices is not only expensive, because of wiring and other hardware costs, but inefficient as well. Point to-point circuits should be reserved for devices that require a dedicated link because their communication needs demand it. A pair of multiplexers will, for example, need to be connected by a single link. Multiplexers are devices that let other, slower devices share a higher-speed circuit. Sharing a high-speed circuit is more efficient in terms of utilizing that circuit's capacity.
Answer to Question 2Unicode (
www.unicode.org) uses a 16-bit character code that can support up to 64,000 different characters. This is a big enough character set to represent most, if not all, human languages, something not possible with EBCDIC or ASCII. In addition, Unicode contains the EBCDIC and ASCII coding schemes. Technologies that use Unicode can be backward compatible with the proper software engineering. A backward-compatible technology is one that will function with earlier versions of that technology. A backward-compatible technology will cost a business less in that older hardware and/or software may not need to be immediately replaced.
