University of Puget Sound - Fall 2009
CSci281 Assembly Language and Computer Architecture

Class Periods and Exam Schedule

Catalog description

Introduction to machine organization, machine structure, data representation, digital logic and assembly language programming on a RISC based architecture.

What we're really going to study:

"Computer architecture" is commonly seen as the aspects of a computer design visible to the assembly language programmer. At the minimum this includes reference to instructions, registers, memory organization, and peripheral access, but may also cover internal buses, common peripherals, etc. That's why "assembly language programming" appears in the description. All the rest helps us understand what's going on inside the machine.

In broad terms, this class will look at where we are, how we got here, and where we may go with respect to computer architectures. The evolution of the electronic computer has been driven by demands for more speed and smaller size. (It's fortunate that smaller size generally supports greater speed, but other, more subtle, tricks are used as well. These tricks often affect how we program the computer.) This evolution has had many side tracks and a few retreats, the study of which can illuminate a possible underlying grand scheme.

We will examine several architectures this term.

Textbook

The authors have provided some on-line materials students can reference including lecture notes and machine simulators. I've recreated the SRC Instruction Set shown in the textbook's back flyleaf and enumerated the list of opcodes. WARNING, you should make corrections to your textbook as noted in the published errata for the book.

Other worthwhile reading:

• ABC:The first(?) digital computer implementation
• Selected Historical Computer Designs and Computer Architects
• Motorola MC68000 Programmer's Reference Manual and reference chart and more
• SPARCArchitecture Reference Manual
• Tutorials for the C programming language #0 #1 #2 #3 #4 #5
• Number Systems
• SI units of measurement, and more specifically
• prefixes relating to powers of 2
• how to study
• Secure Shell command line and file transfer
• ALUs
• half adder & full adder
• ISAs
• Java Virtual Machine info
• Python
• Access to X Window System via MS Windows
  • startxwin.bat
  • startxwinOrion.bat
  • startxwinRbentson6.bat
• Supercomputing
  • the 500 fastest computers
  • Cray Red Storm

Other Resources

• help in a Unix environment
• Unix command line tutorial
• vim (vi improved) for Windows
• Revision Control System

Lecture Schedule and Notes

• 08/30 Chapter 1
• 09/07 Chapter 2
  • Alternate view of NOR based flip-flop
  • Animated versions of Fig 2.24: 1 sec clock and 5 sec clock
• 09/21 Chapter 3
  CISC and RISC
  • VAX POLY instruction
  • notes about the caseshift code
• 10/05 Chapter 4
• 10/26 Chapter 5
• rough visualization of pipelining
• 11/16 Chapter 6
• 11/23 Chapter 7

Assignments

Assignments and grades are recorded at moodle. Just login using your network/email password, then select this course.

Grading

Programming is not just about writing syntatically correct programs which compute the correct results. It is also about writing commentary and other documentation which will help others understand what you're doing. (This matches one of the University goals which emphasizes "the ability to communicate clearly and effectively".) Therefore you will also be expected to write clearly. Spelling, grammar, and style count.

Final grades will be based on the following components:

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CSci281/index.html was last edited by Randolph Bentson, on 2009/10/12T15:55:46-07:00
This course syllabus is a work in progress, so be sure to visit again in the near future.