Comp 220 - Computer Organization (Spring 2025)

Introductory Information

• Syllabus.
• Canvas site.
• Dive into Systems - online book for introductory explanations of some course content.
• Compiler Explorer - see what your C++ code looks like in Assembly.
• Computer for sale!
• Image of laptop motherboard - with labels
• Image of another laptop motherboard - no labels
• Simpler parts of motherboard - with labels
• End of Moore's Law - article from MIT Technology Review.
• How transistors work - short YouTube video.
• Cosmic Rays Can Flip Bits! - video on how cosmic rays can impact ICs due to the latter's increasingly tiny size.

Resources

• Decimal to Binary Converter and vice-versa; also includes Hexadecimal.
• MARS - MIPS Assembler and Runtime Simulator; IDE for running MIPS/SPIM. From our friends at Missouri State University.
• Figures from Chapter 3 (Arithmetic).
• Figures from Appendix B (Circuits).
• Logisim 2.7.1 - circuit simulator (Java JAR file).
• IEEE 754 Floating Point Converter
• IEEE Floating Point Standard 754.
• MIPS Procedure Conventions - a nice document pilfered from our friends at the University of Washington.
• Figures from Chapter 4.
• Figures from Chapter 5.

Fun Images (??)

Photos from the Arithmeum Museum in Bonn, Germany.

• 99.9999999% pure silicon crystal
• Silicon wafers, and self portrait
• Chips on a wafer
• This IS your father's memory (magnetic core memory; 10000 bit capacity)
• So easy, a monkey can do it! (check out the text from the original instructions in upper left)
• As exciting as it gets for a mathematician

And more from the London Science Museum.

• PDP8 minicomputer

Crazy Model Expo (CME)

• Rube Goldberg? - no, it's a portion of the CPU (CME 2012)!
• Katie and Sam - showing binary counter (CME 2017).
• Jon and Lex (CME 2017).
• Eammon's binary counter (CME 2019).
• Jeffrey explaining his flip-flop poster (CME 2022).
• Here's Greg's 8-bit shifter (CME 2024).
• Colin showing Something using Legos (CME 2024).

Hardware Lab

• Image 1
• Image 2
• Image 3

Examples/Handouts

• Measurements and Units
• Seven Great Ideas in Computer Architecture.
• Chapter 1 problems
• Figure 1.16 (pdf) - clock rate and power over time to 2018 (from text).
• Figure 1.17 (pdf) - processor performance over time to 2018 (from text).
• 42 Year Trend - processor performance over time to 2017.
• Up-to-date CPU performance - based on running benchmarks.
• SPIM Quick Reference - note that this reference is not very clear about which instructions are pseudoinstructions.
• MIPS Pseudoinstructions.
• example1.s - simplest little assembly program.
• handout2.s - some basic math in assembly.
• example2.s - same as the previous, but with comments.
• handout2messy.s - same as above, but with no spacing.
• example3.s - arrays in MIPS (What? Already??).
• example4.s - branches/jumps, version 1.
• example5.s - branches/jumps, version 2.
• example6.s - using branch as a loop.
• example7.s - branching with inequality.
• forLoop.s - in-class FOR loop example.
• example8.s - using left and right shifts.
• boolean algebra rules/theorems.
• Flowchart of Booth's Algorithm.
• Flowchart for unsigned binary division.
• example9.s - arithmetic with floating point values.
• example10.cpp - sample C++ program containing a short function.
• example10.s - assembly version of example10.cpp using a basic procedure.
• floatInt.s - program that prompts for a float, turns it into an integer (truncated), and displays a message whether the value was less than 100.0, or greater than or equal to 100.0.
• example11.cpp - C++ program that has two functions.
• example11.s - assembly version of example11.cpp that shows the use of frames to store the activation stack.
• PathFinder - an interactive visualization of the datapath, courtesy of Paedar Rader '24. The option you want is Datapath. This tool will give you a sense of how the data (registers, addresses, and user input values) travels through the datapath.
  Note that this is an experimental tool; only R-Format instructions are modeled, and it is not guaranteed that every possible instruction is modeled correctly.
• Comparison of latencies in computer components

Lab Info

Projects/Homeworks

Things now get hectic! Keep up!

• Homework 5 - finally, the last one!
• MIPS 3 - third and last programming project.
• Final Project - description of project for the Crazy Model Expo.
• Poster template - template for final project poster in PowerPoint (pptx) format.