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can someone help me with computer science

I have my exam in 6 days and I honestly want to kms. Wth is an ethernet protocol?
protocol is an Ancient Greek word, it referred to proto (first) and kollus (sticky). (approximately, my greek is not very good)

it meant "the instructions that are stuck to the first page of a written scroll to explain what you should do with this scroll", in other words "how & why to do stuff" then followed by a lot of detailed Ancient Greek things

we still use that a lot today in ICT, Wi-Fi Protocol for example is a family of international standard ways of doing Wi-Fi, for Wi-Fi the protocol is usually called 802.11, and sub-types are 802.11a, b, n (all more or less ancient) today we use 802.11ac and soon we will use Wi-Fi Protocol (standard) 802.11ax (better security, better privacy, faster etc)

so an Ethernet Protocol is the standard by how data is transmitted over a particular system called Ethernet, named in honour of the victorian concept of outer space, & the skies above, being Aether. The first "net" protocol standard was probably "Alohanet" designed to connect old internet (called ARPAnet back then) to Hawaii. that was an earlier form of Wi-Fi, however Ethernet is wire based, with grey or coloured cables plugging in between computers, plugged into Home Routers and especially Enterprise network switches.

one computer is a computer, two computers is two computers, but when you plug-in to these an ethernet cable using international standard Ethernet protocols (so that they both speak the same language to each other) then the computing power starts to quickly become immense, leading to today's internet.

Ethernet Protocol is from 1983 known as IEEE 802.3, and has been divided into different layers, like a multi-coloured sponge wedding cake. (in order to simplify the international standards agreements) with computers linked together into Local and wider Area Networks, LAN, WAN, MAN, and the data is built up and torn down for protection and security, in predictable ways, according to sub-protocols.

each layer of the cake has a name, and a technical description.
they do get quite complicated! more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite. (apologies for wikipedia, but they have nice pictures on the RHS) Network Topology, Data Flow, and the de/encapsulation of data as it passes higher up/down through the 'cake' layers.
Physical Link (cable, nowadays called "Cat 5e", or "Cat 6" with their own technical protocol,
Internet (using TCP/IP protocol),
Packet type (UDP for example, own technical protocol) and finally the
Data is passed to the application e.g. a browser to display this TSR message (the Browser also uses internet international standards)

so summing up, Ethernet Protocol is one of a whole, massive set of international communications standards without which a computer is just a single isolated computer, and it's amazing that it all works, from groups such as ETSI, ISO/IEC, IEEE, RFC, W3C, standards and protocols. And it started in Ancient Greece.
(edited 4 years ago)
Are you at GCSE?
Reply 3
Same here, 2210 Paper 1
Reply 4
yh
Original post by whatadon
Are you at GCSE?
Reply 5
thanks - but if this was a 2 mark question on GCSE what are the most important 2 bits to say?
Original post by LuigiMario
protocol is an Ancient Greek word, it referred to proto (first) and kollus (sticky). (approximately, my greek is not very good)

it meant "the instructions that are stuck to the first page of a written scroll to explain what you should do with this scroll", in other words "how & why to do stuff" then followed by a lot of detailed Ancient Greek things

we still use that a lot today in ICT, Wi-Fi Protocol for example is a family of international standard ways of doing Wi-Fi, for Wi-Fi the protocol is usually called 802.11, and sub-types are 802.11a, b, n (all more or less ancient) today we use 802.11ac and soon we will use Wi-Fi Protocol (standard) 802.11ax (better security, better privacy, faster etc)

so an Ethernet Protocol is the standard by how data is transmitted over a particular system called Ethernet, named in honour of the victorian concept of outer space, & the skies above, being Aether. The first "net" protocol standard was probably "Alohanet" designed to connect old internet (called ARPAnet back then) to Hawaii. that was an earlier form of Wi-Fi, however Ethernet is wire based, with grey or coloured cables plugging in between computers, plugged into Home Routers and especially Enterprise network switches.

one computer is a computer, two computers is two computers, but when you plug-in to these an ethernet cable using international standard Ethernet protocols (so that they both speak the same language to each other) then the computing power starts to quickly become immense, leading to today's internet.

Ethernet Protocol is from 1983 known as IEEE 802.3, and has been divided into different layers, like a multi-coloured sponge wedding cake. (in order to simplify the international standards agreements) with computers linked together into Local and wider Area Networks, LAN, WAN, MAN, and the data is built up and torn down for protection and security, in predictable ways, according to sub-protocols.

each layer of the cake has a name, and a technical description.
they do get quite complicated! more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite. (apologies for wikipedia, but they have nice pictures on the RHS) Network Topology, Data Flow, and the de/encapsulation of data as it passes higher up/down through the 'cake' layers.
Physical Link (cable, nowadays called "Cat 5e", or "Cat 6" with their own technical protocol,
Internet (using TCP/IP protocol),
Packet type (UDP for example, own technical protocol) and finally the
Data is passed to the application e.g. a browser to display this TSR message (the Browser also uses internet international standards)

so summing up, Ethernet Protocol is one of a whole, massive set of international communications standards without which a computer is just a single isolated computer, and it's amazing that it all works, from groups such as ETSI, ISO/IEC, IEEE, RFC, W3C, standards and protocols. And it started in Ancient Greece.
summing up Ethernet Protocol is one of a whole, massive set of international communications standards without which a computer is just a single isolated computer....

and

Ethernet Protocol is used in LAN (local area networks), at very high speeds, 10 megabits, 100 megabits, 1000 megabits and faster
(the protocol discussion between computers allows them to agree on a common speed for data transport)
Original post by hehe_x
I have my exam in 6 days and I honestly want to kms. Wth is an ethernet protocol?

'Protocol' means the same thing in computer science as it does in plain english; a protocol is a set of rules.

In the case of 'Ethernet Protocol', it's a set of rules describing how electronic devices communicate with each other using Ethernet hardware.

Communication physically takes place using electronic signals which are transmitted via Ethernet cables, between devices such as Ethernet adaptors/cards (usually known as "network interface cards"), switches, routers, etc.

The purpose is to make sure that all ethernet hardware, regardless of its manufacturer, operates in a standard, consistent way so that every device physically connected to each other via ethernet hardware is able to understand every other device it's connected to; they all interpret the signals in exactly the same way, and they all send signals in exactly the same format.

If you'd like an analogy, imagine what happens when a Japanese speaker who can't speak French is trying to have a conversation with a Frenchman who can't speak Japanese. But then imagine both of those people happen to be fluent in German. which language would they use?

If you think about it, all forms of meaningful communication needs a set of rules or protocol. When you're speaking English to people, you're following the rules of the English language. If you didn't follow those rules, other English speakers probably wouldn't be able to understand what you're trying to say, they'd think you were just talking gibberish so they wouldn't communicate with you and just ignore you (which is exactly what happens when two electronic devices don't follow the same protocol; they may receive a signal, but wouldn't understand each other, so they won't communicate).
(edited 4 years ago)
lol these people are just confusing! the mark scheme for ocr) says: a set of rules for communication
Reply 9
Thanks! - funny how teachers have to make stuff so much more complicated than this
Original post by winterscoming
'Protocol' means the same thing in computer science as it does in plain english; a protocol is a set of rules.

In the case of 'Ethernet Protocol', it's a set of rules describing how electronic devices communicate with each other using Ethernet hardware.

Communication physically takes place using electronic signals which are transmitted via Ethernet cables, between devices such as Ethernet adaptors/cards (usually known as "network interface cards"), switches, routers, etc.

The purpose is to make sure that all ethernet hardware, regardless of its manufacturer, operates in a standard, consistent way so that every device physically connected to each other via ethernet hardware is able to understand every other device it's connected to; they all interpret the signals in exactly the same way, and they all send signals in exactly the same format.

If you'd like an analogy, imagine what happens when a Japanese speaker who can't speak French is trying to have a conversation with a Frenchman who can't speak Japanese. But then imagine both of those people happen to be fluent in German. which language would they use?

If you think about it, all forms of meaningful communication needs a set of rules or protocol. When you're speaking English to people, you're following the rules of the English language. If you didn't follow those rules, other English speakers probably wouldn't be able to understand what you're trying to say, they'd think you were just talking gibberish so they wouldn't communicate with you and just ignore you (which is exactly what happens when two electronic devices don't follow the same protocol; they may receive a signal, but wouldn't understand each other, so they won't communicate).
Ooops, sorry! We're explaining what an Ethernet Protocol actually is :-)
not what you are supposed to learn in order to pass the test,

but there was news on the radio this morning that ten thousand less british students passed GCSE ICT in 2018 , compared to previous years , as the course has been dropped in many schools due to "harder marking"

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48188877

looks like you might have to build your own PCs in the future

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