Suppose we wish to put a set of names in alphabetical order. We call the act of doing so sorting. One algorithm that can accomplish that is called the bubble sort. We could then program our bubble sort algorithm in C, and compile the C program to execute on an x86 ISA. The x86 ISA can be implemented with an Intel Pentium IV microarchitecture. Let us call the sequence "Bubble Sort, C program, x86 ISA, Pentium IV microarchitecture" one transformation process. Assume we have available four sorting algorithms and can program in C, C++, Pascal, Fortran, and COBOL. We have available compilers that can translate from each of these to either x86 or SPARC, and we have available three different microarchitectures for x86 and three different microarchitectures for SPARC.

a. How many transformation processes are possible?

b. Write three examples of transformation processes.

c. How many transformation processes are possible if instead of three different microarchitectures for x86 and three different microarchitectures for SPARC, there were two for x86 and four for SPARC?