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COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE


RESOURCES
 

Useful Links


important stuff
 

webcast

(see syllabus for log in credentials)

piazza

reading assignments

additional reading list


sample exams
 

sample exams

Note: you must be logged into your UCSC account for access


mars

 


addt'l resources
 

reference tables

(instruction op codes and formats, ascii table, mars syscalls)

mips32 docs


cmd line interface
 

 
WORKSHEETS
 

I teach Computer Systems and Assembly language using fill-in-the-blank worksheets that I’ve designed. Students who manually write out notes are more likely to retain information presented in class over students who type notes.

 

These worksheets allows students to handwrite notes and follow along in class, without getting overwhelmed with feeling like they need to write everything. I include examples for students to work out both during lecture with their classmates, and outside of class.

intro to computing systems
notes 0

 

 

history of computing, computing levels of abstraction

SUPPLEMENTS

who invented the computer?

integer numbering systems
notes 1
 

 

unary, grouping, positional, decimal, octal, hexadecimal, binary

 

SUPPLEMENTS

betterexplained.com
khan academy video
number base calculator

combinational logic 1
notes 2a
 

 

MOSFET transistors, PMOS, NMOS, logic gates, inverter, and, or, nand, nor, xor, xnor, Venn diagrams

 

SUPPLEMENTS

 

CMOS

Peter Mathys

(watch 13:05 - 17:00)

combinational logic 2
notes 2b
 

 

digital circuit examples, sum of products (SOP), product of sums (POS), minterms, maxterms, programmable logic array (PLA)

SUPPLEMENTS

EngMicroLectures

Peter Mathys

combinational logic 3
notes 2c
 

 

multiplexors, decoders, half adder, full adder, ripple-carry adder, ALU

boolean algebra
notes 3
 

 

Boolean identities, De Morgan's Law

SUPPLEMENTS

 

BOOLEAN ALGEBRA

equivalence

Peter Mathys

NAND/NOR ONLY VIDEOS

EngMicroLectures

Peter Mathys

sequential logic
notes 4
 

 

SR latch, active high, active low, D latch, D flip-flop

 

SUPPLEMENTS

 

TIMING DIAGRAMS

EngMicroLectures

SR LATCHES

EngMicroLectures

Neso Academy

Ben Eater

FLIP-FLOPS / REGISTERS

EngMicroLectures

signed integer
representation
notes 5
 

 

signed numbers, sign magnitude, two’s complement, bias / excess notation, floating point, fixed point

 

SUPPLEMENTS

 

TWO'S COMPLEMENT

EngMicroLectures

Ben Eater

BIAS NOTATION

Atiwong Suchato

arithmetic and
logic operations
notes 6
 

 

carry out, overflow, bitwise, reduction, shifts, rotate

SUPPLEMENTS

OVERFLOW

EngMicroLectures

fractional
representation
notes 7
 

 

fixed point, IEEE 754 single precision floating point

SUPPLEMENTS

binary fractions

fixed point

text representation
notes 8
 

 

ASCII, UTF-8

von neumann model
notes 9
 

 

von Neumann architecture, memory, address space, addressibility, processing unit, control unit, input, output, memory

mips instruction set architecture
notes 10
 

 

general purpose registers, assembler directives, data directives, labels, instruction format, instruction types, operate instructions, data movement (loads and stores), control flow instructions, little endian, big endian, memory alignment, pseudo instructions, instruction encoding

SUPPLEMENTS

reference tables: ascii, instruction formats, opcodes​

mars: mips assembler and
runtime simulator
notes 11
 

 

memory display, syscalls

SUPPLEMENTS

reference tables: syscalls

mips addressing modes
notes 12
 

 

register direct, immediate, register indirect, base + offset (displacement), PC relative, pseudo direct

stacks and subroutines
notes 13
 

 

stack, jump instructions, return address, subroutines

SUPPLEMENTS

stack

procedures (David B.)
videos 2.7 - 2.12

functions (Amell Peralta)
video tutorials 15 - 18

mips data path
notes 14
 

 

mips data path, r-type, i-type, j-type, pc, register file, alu, control unit

SUPPLEMENTS

mips data path image

load, store, branch data path examples

video (Scott Moore)


SPOILER ALERT!
 

How do I see the answers?


EXTRA CREDIT
 

Each extra credit assignment is worth up to 1% added to your final grade.

computer archeology
 

 

Write 250 words about the background, functionality, and social implications of an artifact from computer history.

Create 1 - 3 slides on that artifact and present it to the class.

ham radio license
 

Get your ham radio license and attend 4 ucsc amateur radio club events.

skill progression
 

Learn a new skill, or progress in a skill you have already worked on. Show documentation of your skill progression and journal about it four times throughout the quarter. Examples: juggling, drawing, singing, dancing, playing a musical instrument, movement.

malleable intelligence essay
 

Read the chapter “Intelligence as a Malleable Construct” from the Handbook of Intelligence and write a 500+ word essay. This assignment will have 3 parts: summary, reflection, and recommendations.


NEED PRIVATE TUTORING?
 

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