Final answer:
The number of blocks of main memory in a computer with 236 bytes of byte-addressable memory, a cache size of 216 bytes, and each cache block containing 64 bytes, is calculated by dividing the total memory size (236 bytes) by the size of each block (64 bytes).
Step-by-step explanation:
To calculate the number of blocks of main memory given a computer with 236 bytes of byte-addressable main memory and a cache size of 216 bytes, with each cache block containing 64 bytes, you first need to understand the meaning of these prefix multipliers in the context of computer memory. The key unit here is the byte. The prefix 'kilo-' commonly means 1,024 in the computing context (though it traditionally means 1,000 in general metrics). To express 236 in terms of bytes, you also need to know that a megabyte (MB) is 1,024 kilobytes (KB), and a gigabyte (GB) is 1,024 MB. However, in this question, we are focusing solely on the byte count.
Here, 236 bytes does not correspond to a standard metric prefix because it is 64 GB times 1,024 (the number of MB in a GB), which equals 65,536 MB, or 236 bytes. Therefore, to find the number of main memory blocks, you divide the total number of bytes in main memory by the number of bytes in a block: 236 / 64.