Digital Computers

This course aims in understanding the basic organization of a computer system, the use of basic (machine-level) instructions, memory organization and its use to represent data-structures used in high-level programming languages. It also covers the communication between the processor, the memory and the peripherals, interrupts, exceptions and DMAs.

Objectives

Understanding of the basic structure of computer systems, memory organization, data-structure representation in memory, existence and use of stack, communication with peripherals.

Prerequisites

Introduction to Computer Science

Syllabus

Basic computer organization, processor, memory and peripherals, machine and assembly language and programming. Processor programming model, instructions and instruction sets, addressing modes, interrupts and exceptions, DMA. Digital number representation, fixed/floating point, arithmetic operations, logic and bitwise operations. Memory systems, stack, arrays, data structures. Hands-on labs with low-level C and MIPS assembly programming.