COMP 220: COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
[SPRING 2010]

Lecture Slides from Mary Jane Irwin's Computer Architecture course at Penn State.

sort -n vs. sort -g - answer to why the sorts we used in lab are different.

Computer progress (Figure 1.10.7) - chart showing the evolution of computers and computing power (pdf).

Figure 1.15 - Graph of clock rate and power for Intel x86 (pdf).

Figure 1.16 - Growth of processor performance (pdf).

example1.a - simplest little assembly program.

handout2.a - some basic math in assembly.

example3.a - arrays in SPIM (What? Already??).

example4.a - branches/jumps, version 1.

example5.a - branches/jumps, version 2.

example6.a - using branch as a loop.

example7.a - branching with inequality.

example8.a - using left and right shifts.

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 encocde 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.