CSCI 410: Elements of Computing Systems

Winter/Spring 2012

Feb 22: Lecture 18, Character Symbols & ASCII; Creating an Assembler

You should have begun Project 6.

CPU implementation review

How are letters represented in binary?

What are ASCII, EBCDIC, and UTF8?

What is an assembler?

What are an assembler's two main tasks?

What is the Hack machine language specification?

What is a two-pass assembler?

Project overview

Assignment: Reading 15, Quiz 15. Continue Project 6.

Feb 20: No Class, Yay!

You should have finished Project 5.

Assignment: Begin Project 6.

Feb 17: Lecture 17, The Hack CPU & Hardware Review

You should have finished Reading 14 and be working on Project 5. Hand in Quiz 14.

How does the CPU need to work? How might you build it?

How might you implement the CPU control logic?

How might you handle the JUMP logic in the CPU?

Assignment: Finish Project 15 (ecs05).

Feb 15: Lecture 16, Buses, The Hack Memory Implementation

You should have finished Reading 13 and begun Project 5. Hand in Quiz 13.

What is a bus?

What sort of signals are sent over a bus?

What is Direct Memory Access? What benefits does it provide?

Hack Memory implementation review.

CPU tests discussion.

Assignment: Reading 14, Quiz 14 and continue Project 5.

Feb 13: Lecture 15, Semiconductors, Transistors, Integrated Circuits, Microprocessors and the Hack Computer Specification

You should be have finished Reading 12 and Project 4. Hand in Quiz 12.

A Brief History of Computing

What were some drawbacks of using vacuum tubes instead of relays?

What is a semiconductor?

What is a transistor and how does it work?

What is an integrated circuit?

A comparison of the Intel 8080, Motorola 6800, modern processors, and the Hack instruction sets.

What is the Hack architecture like?

How does the Memory need to work? How might you build it?

Assignment: Reading 13, Quiz 13 and Project 5.

Feb 10: Lecture 14, More Features of the Hack Assembly Language

You should be working on Project 4.

What other symbols are at our disposal in Hack assembly?

How do variables and labels work in Hack?

Hack exercises & assembly tips.

Project 4 tips & walkthrough.

Assignment: Reading 12, Quiz 12. Complete Project 4.

Feb 8: Lecture 13, Hack Assembly Language

You should have finished Reading 11 and be working on Project 4. Hand in Quiz 11.

Where are we in the abstraction stack?

What is the design purpose of any assembly lanugage?

What are some general things every assembly language can do?

What is the von Neumann architecture?

How is the Hack platform designed?

How many registers do we have at our disposal?

What is an A-instruction?

What is a C-instrcution?

How are A and C instructions represented in machine code?

What other symbols are at our disposal in Hack assembly?

How do we interact with I/O devices like the screen and keyboard?

Project tips, assembly exercises.

Assignment: Continue Project 4.

Feb 6: Lecture 12, Automation and Machine Language

You should have finished Project 3, Reading 10 and you should be able to explain how to build parts of a computer from symbolic thought to flip-flops & memory. Hand in Quiz 10.

How might you build an automated sequential adding machine?

How might you expand this machine's capabilities / instruction set?

What is an accumulator, really?

What is an opcode?

What is an instruction fetch? Instruction cycle?

What are the different components of an instruction?

How might you implement a loop with opcodes?

What is a CPU? What does it mean to have a 32-bit CPU?

What is machine language?

What is assembly language?

What is a computer?

Assignment: Reading 11, Quiz 11 and Project 4.

Feb 3: Lecture 11: Snow Day, No Class

You should be working on Reading 10, Quiz 10, and Project 3.

Assignment: Think about everything we've built and be able to explain it. Have a long conversation with a caveman or stranded islander, explaining how everything works, from the bottom up.

Feb 1: Lecture 10, An Assemblage of Memory

You should have finished Reading 9. Hand in Quiz 9.

Implementation review: ALU

What is memory?

What is a 1-bit register? How might you create one?

How would you build an 8-bit register?

What does it mean to address memory?

How can you use MUX and DMUX to serve as address selectors?

How might you assemble larger memory units from smaller ones?

Assignment: Reading 10, Quiz 10. Continue Project 3.

Jan 30: Lecture 9, Feedback, Flip-Flops, Frequency Dividers & Counters

You should have finished Reading 8 and Project 2. Hand in Quiz 8.

How might you create a physical buzzer using a relay?

How do you create a simple oscillator?

How do you measure the period, cycle and frequency of an oscillator?

Who invented the flip-flop, and what is 'special' about this kind of circuit?

How might you build an RS latch?

What is the clock? What does it mean for a chip to be clocked?

How does a level-triggered RS flip-flop work?

How does a level-triggered D flip-flop work?

What's does all this out(t)=in(t-1) stuff mean?

How might you build a simple multi-number adding machine?

How does an edge-triggered D flip-flop work?

How might you build a binary counter?

Assignment: Reading 9, Quiz 9 and Project 3.

Jan 27: Lecture 8, Combinatorial Chips

You should have finished Reading 7. Hand in Quiz 7. You should have implemented everything in Project 2 except the ALU.

Why does the hexadecimal number system conveniently complement bytes?

What is the hex shorthand for an 8, 16, 32, or 64-bit binary number?

Implementation review: HalfAdder, FullAdder, Add16, Inc16.

How might you build an ALU?

Assignment: Reading 8, Quiz 8. Review TECS 35-40 and complete ALU Worksheet (optional). Complete Project 2 (build the ALU).

Jan 25: Lecture 7, Binary Subtraction

You should have finished Reading 6 and be working on Project 2. Hand in Quiz 6.

What are three steps (using nine's complement) for subtracting without borrowing?

How can you quickly find the one's complement of a binary number?

How can we represent negative binary numbers?

How can you quickly find the two's complement of a binary number?

What must we beware of when using using a two's complement system?

Using a two's complement system, can the adding machine in Code be used to display negative numbers?

How can we combine simple binary/Boolean operations in a two's complement system to accomplish higher-level operations?

Assignment: Reading 7, Quiz 7. Continue Project 2.

Jan 23: Lecture 6, Binary Addition

You should have finished Reading 5 and Project 1. Hand in Quiz 4.

Implementation review: Not, And, Or, Xor, Not16, And16, Or16, Or8Way, Mux, DMux, Mux16, Mux4Way16, Mux8Way16, DMux4Way, DMux8Way.

How might you create a binary adding machine?

What logic gates match the truth tables for sum and carry bits?

How might you construct a half adder? And a full adder?

What is ripple-carry and how does it affect adder performance?

Assignment: Reading 6, Quiz 6 and Project 2.

Jan 21: Lecture 5 (optional), Implementing Logic Gates, Multi-Bit Gates

You should have finished Reading 4. Finish Project 1.

Implementation tips: Mux, DMux, Not16, And16, Or16, n-Way gates.

How does HDL represent the physical wiring of our chips?

How do you create multi-bit chips with Hack HDL?

Assignment: Reading 5.

Jan 18: Lecture 4, Logic and Switches, Logic Gates, Boolean Function to Hardware Implementation

You should have finished Reading 3. Hand in Quiz 3. Continue Project 1.

What is logic?

How does Boolean algebra work?

How might you implement a boolean test as an electric circuit?

What property do boolean expressions and switch "networks" share? (they can be simplified)

What is a logic gate?

What two things can a relay do? (amplify, switch)

What is a double-throw relay?

What is an OR, AND, NOR, NAND, inverter and buffer?

What is DeMorgan's law? How is it related to inverters, OR, AND, NOR and NAND gates?

What is a multiplexer? What is a demultiplexer?

How can you distill the "canonical form" of a boolean function from a truth table?

What is one methodical way of implementing a chip from specification?

Assignment: Reading 4, Quiz 4.

Jan 16: Lecture 3, Number Systems, Base-10 to Base-2, Bits

You should have finished Reading 2 and Project 0. Hand in Quiz 2.

What is a symbolic number system?

How do positional number systems work?

What's so great about ten?

What is meant by a numeric system's base?

How do you convert between binary and decimal?

What is special about binary numbers and switches?

What is a bit?

How many bits do you need to represent N codes?

How do UPC bar codes work?

How might you represent Morse code or Braille as bits?

Assignment: Reading 3, Quiz 3 and Project 1.

Jan 13: Lecture 2, Electric Circuits, Long Circuits & Telegraph System

You should have finished Reading 1 and be almost done with Project -1. Hand in Quiz 1.

What is an electric circuit? What does ήλεκτρον (electron) mean in Greek?

Vocab: anode, cathode, series, parallel, conductors, resistors, insulators.

What are voltage, amperes, resistance and watts?

Who is credited with the above terms, and how do you calculate them?

What is a common? What is a ground?

What problem did early telegraph installers face?

What was the first message sent via telegraph?

What is a relay and how does it work?

Project demonstration.

Assignment: Reading 2, Quiz 2 and Project 0.

Jan 11: Lecture 1, Hello World (01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100)

You should have purchased the textbooks and be prepared for class.

Introductions.

What is a computer? (to be continued)

What is symbolic thought? What is a code?

Who invented Morse code and when?

How might you construct a morse-to-alpha table?

Is Morse code binary? Why?

What preceded Braille? Who created the Braille code and when? Where did he get the idea?

Is Braille binary? Why?

Assignment: Reading 1, Quiz 1 and Project -1.

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