A Programmer's View of Computer Architecture
With Assembly Language Examples from the MIPS RISC Architecture
Published in September 2003
Book
Hardback
416 pages
978-0-19-513109-3 (ISBN)
Description
This introductory text offers a contemporary treatment of computer architecture using assembly and machine language with a focus on software. Students learn how computers work through a clear, generic presentation of a computer architecture, a departure from the traditional focus on a specific architecture. A computer's capabilities are introduced within the context of software, reinforcing the software focus of the text. Designed for computer science majors in an assembly language course, this text uses a top-down approach to the material that enables students to begin programming immediately and to understand the assembly language, the interface between hardware and software. The text includes examples from the MIPS RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architecture, and an accompanying software simulator package simulates a MIPS RISC processor (the software does not require a MIPS processor to run).
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
illus.
Weight
704 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-513109-3 (9780195131093)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
1. Abstractions and Computers ; 1.1 Levels of Abstraction ; 1.2 The Tower of Computer Abstractions ; 1.3 A Programming Language as an Abstraction ; 1.4 Computer Architecture ; 1.5 Computer Execution Basics ; 2. SAL: A Simple Abstract Language ; 2.1 On Assembly and Compilation ; 2.2 Variable Declaration ; 2.3 Arithmetic Operations ; 2.4 Control Structures ; 2.5 Communication with the User ; 2.6 A SAL Program ; 2.7 Procedures ; 2.8 A Modular SAL Program ; 3. Number Systems ; 3.1 Numbers and Their Representation ; 3.2 Weighted Positional Notation ; 3.3 Transformations Between Radices ; 3.4 Representation of Non-Integer Numbers ; 3.5 Precision and Accuracy ; 4. Data Representation ; 4.1 Numbers versus Their Representation ; 4.2 Representation of Integers ; 4.3 Characters ; 4.4 Floating Point Representation ; 5. Arithmetic and Logical Operations ; 5.1 Boolean Operations ; 5.2 Shift Operations ; 5.3 Addition and Subtraction ; 5.4 Multiplication ; 5.5 Division ; 6. Floating Point Arithmetic ; 6.1 Hardware versus Software Calculations ; 6.2 Addition and Subtraction ; 6.3 Multiplication ; 6.4 Division ; 6.5 Advanced Topics ; 6.6 SAL Instructions ; 7. Data Structures ; 7.l Memory as an Array ; 7.2 Arrays ; 7.3 Stacks ; 7.4 Queues ; 8. Registers and MAL ; 8.1 Instructions as a Data Type ; 8.2 Specifying Addresses in Instructions ; 8.3 The MAL Architecture ; 8.4 Example MAL Code ; 9. Procedures ; 9.1 MAL Procedure Call and Return Mechanisms ; 9.2 Dynamic Storage Allocation ; 9.3 Activation Records ; 9.4 Parameter Passing ; 9.5 Saving Registers ; 9.6 MIPS RISC Register Usage ; 9.7 A MAL Program that Uses Procedures ; 10. The Assembly Process ; 10.1 What Assemblers Do ; 10.2 True Assembly Language (TAL) ; 10.3 Machine Code Format and Generation ; 10.4 Program Relocation ; 11. Input and Output ; 11.1 Typical I/O Devices ; 11.2 The Processor-I/O Interface ; 12. Interrupts and Exception Handling ; 12.1 The Exception Mechanism ; 12.2 The Role of the Operating System ; 12.3 The MIPS RISC Exception Mechanism ; 12.4 A Sample Exception Handler ; 12.5 Operating System Issues ; 13. Architectural Performance ; 13.1 On Minimal Instruction Sets and Choices ; 13.2 Pipelining ; 13.3 Branching Techniques ; 13.4 Memory Hierarchies ; 14. Alternative Architectures ; 14.1 What's All This About RISC? ; 14.2 The Single-Chip Constraint ; 14.3 The Motorola 68000 Family ; 14.4 The Intel iAPS 86 Architecture ; 14.5 The Cray-1 ; 14.6 SPARC ; Appendix A SAL ; Appendix B MAL ; Appendix C TAL