Introduction, Continued

Tom Kelliher, CS 220

Sept. 8, 1997

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Assignment

( Same as before.) Read Chapter 1 of Goodman & Miller and Chapter 1 of Abrahams & Larson. Browse Chapters 2 and 3 of A & L.

Introduction

1. History of computers, in a nutshell:
   1. The microprocessor.

   2. The gap between processor and memory performance.

   3. The expense of RAM.

   4. Caches.

   5. CISC vs. RISC.

   6. Superscalar: pipelining, branch prediction, multiple functional units, dynamic instruction scheduling, speculative execution.

2. At a software level, how does a computer work?
   1. CPU.

   2. Memory.

   3. I/O.

   4. Registers, multi-level caches, main memory, disk, ...

   5. Software/hardware interface: instruction set --- registers, instructions, addressing modes.

3. Models and abstraction --- How do we model the internal workings of the ISA?

A Peek Inside a Workstation

Tell Me about Yourself

1. What do I need to know about you?

2. What do you find interesting?

3. What do you fear?

4. Why are you here?

5. Do you have any questions you'd like me to address?