HCL - HP

HCL - HP
Written test:

One GRE type anals. section, and two comp Sc. sections. One Comp Sc. section was problem solving type. Quite easy. Only question worth mentioning in it was:
You are given a stack on which you can do the following:

Push X ----push the contents of memory location X on the stack
Pop X ----pop the contents of top of stack into mem. loc X
AND ----pop top two elements of stack, AND them and push the
result onto stack.
NOR ----pop top two elements, NOR them and push the result onto stack.

Given two data elements at memory locations A and B, obtain A XOR B using
the above.

First Interview:-

mostly technical.

a) Asked about my B.E. and why I joined MS.

b) My preference of posting. They asked this initially before
launching into any other questions. I told them Madras.
Remainder of the interview was mostly on OS and C. Nothing
on networks. Thus I have this inkling that they frame their
questions on the basis of what you specify as your preference
of posting and depending on what projects are available there.

c) What architectures, apart from 8085, do you know? --- Nothing
very deep and I told them as much.

d) Give the contents of process stack for the execution of
a particular C-program they give.
------ The C-program as such is not important. You just have
to remember the order in which the return address of any
function/procedure call, the parameters, and the local variables
are stored on the stack.
( I guess, any CO book should have this. Maurice Bach talks
about user and kernel stacks)

e) What all are shared by parent and child processes immediately
after parent executes a fork system call? Cross questioned
about the 'copy on write' facility and 'dup' system call.
--- again see MB, and also Stevens' 2nd chapter.

f) What events happen when the following command is given?
cat /etc/passwd more

---- Describe how the shell forks the two processes and how
the pipe gets created between them.
Cross question: How does 'cat' know that its output has to be
written into the pipe and not into standard o/p?


g) Have you written any TSR's? --- No.
What are TSR? ----Terminate but stay resident programs.
Then does it mean DOS is a multitasking system?
---- No, TSRs are interrupt driven

h) How are Windows programs different from normal C-programs?
---- Windows programs are event driven.
What can be the various types of events? --- See Primer/API bible.

i) Difference between swapping and paging.
---- Swapping is moving entire processes between main memory
and hard disk. Paging is moving individual pages of a process.

j) Write a program to list all palindromes in a string.
----- Hint: use a stack and some extra storage for remembering
previous palindromes.

k) What's the outout?

char *cp;
int *ip;

cp=(char *)0x100;
ip=(int *)cp;

ip++;
cp++;
printf("cp = %x ip = %x", cp, ip);

Ans:cp = 0x101 ip = 0x102 ...(why?)

l) What are static variables and functions? There are two files,
say, file1 and file2. file1 has a global declaration
static int x;
file2 has a global declaration
int y;
What is the difference between the two types of declarations
when you link file1 and file2?
--- x is local to functions in file1 and cannot be seen by
functions in file2. y can be seen by functions in both
file1 and file2.

m) How does a debugger set breakpoints in a code you are debugging?
---- some funda regarding insertion if an interrupt instruction
in the code....don't know for sure.
(It seems that this q was also asked by some other company.
Worth knowing the answer.)

This was followed by a shady psychological test. You are given a
set of six pictures. Look at each picture and write a story on each.

Second interview:

(fully personal --- This was more interesting;-)

a) What did you feel about the ppt? --- wasn't very impressive
so gave some shady answer.
b) Have you heard of creativity? -- Ya.
Have you heard of Bernard Shaw? -- Ya.
(Then he rattled off some quote of BS regarding creativity)
What do you say? --- I put some shadiest fundaes regarding
visionaries and Leonardo da Vinci conceptualising Helicopters
in his time!

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NOTE: If you have been offered a job previously by any other company
after your BTech/BE or if you have even slightest of work experience
then make it a point to mention about it. It is a major plus point.
The interviewers will be definitely interested in knowing that some
other company also found you good enough to be selected.
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