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.

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

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.

Lab Info

Lab 1

lab1start.cpp - starting point for Lab 1.
randomNums4M - download this file - don't just click!! (It will take forever to load)
randomNums8M - download this file; even bigger than the previous.

Projects/Homeworks

MIPS 2 - second programming project.
Homework 3
Homework 2

The Knob and Switch (KandS) Computer

The Knob and Switch Computer is a Web-based simulator that will introduce you to the inner workings of a CPU and memory. It is an interactive simulation that allows you to change the computer's settings and view what effect these have.

This simulation comes to us courtesy of Grant Braught of Dickinson College.

The K&S Datapath Simulation: This simulator introduces the K&S datapath. The key features are the knobs and switches that can be set to control the operands, operations and storage of the result.
The K&S Datapath Simulation with Main Memory: This simulator adds a main memory unit to the datapath to increase the storage capacity of the machine. The key features are that memory accesses require more time than register accesses, and that memory and ALU operations happen in parallel even though one of them will be ignored.
The K&S with Microprogramming: This simulator makes the K&S programmable by adding a microprogram store. The concept of microprogramming is intuitive in that the bits of each microprogram simply encode the positions of the knobs and switches.
The Complete K&S Model 1 Computer: This simulator is a complete stored program computer. It uses a control unit that translates machine language commands into the microinstructions that carry out the operation. Instructions entered in main memory locations in assembly language are automatically assembled into machine language. The assembly / machine language instructions are documented on the: Assembly/Machine Language Programming Card.

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