CS611
Assembly Language Programming and Machine Organization
Outline

1. Overview of computer systems (PH 1.1-1.9)

2. C programming (Harbison and Steele)
   • pointers
   • bitwise operators
   • stdio library

3. Representation of data
   • characters: ASCII, Unicode (PH 3.7)
   • integers: 2's complement (PH 4.2)
   • floating point: IEEE formats (PH 4.8)

4. Representation of programs (PH 3.1-3.4)
   • examples: Intel IA-32, Java Virtual Machine

5. Basic computer architecture
   • CPU, registers, instruction set (PH 3.1-3.4)
   • bus, memory, I/O (PH 8.1, 8.4)
   • exceptions, interrupts (PH 5.6, A.7)
   • I/O devices, I/O controllers (PH 8.2-8.3, 8.5)
   • memory cache (PH 7.1-7.3)
   • virtual memory (PH 7.4-7.7)

6. Assembly language programming (PH A.6, A.10)
   • assembler directives
   • stack frames
   • register conventions

7. System software
   • assemblers (PH A.2)
   • linkers (PH A.3)
   • debuggers

8. Advanced topics
   • threads
   • file system implementation

PH is Computer Organization & Design: The Hardware/Software Interface by Patterson and Hennessy.

Harbison and Steele is C: A Reference Manual by Harbison and Steele. However, any good C reference will probably suffice.

Much of the course material is also covered in Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective by Bryant and O'Hallaron.

All of these references are on reserve in the Kingsbury Library.

The readings are not required. They are intended to be supplementary to the course lectures.

Comments and questions should be directed to pjh@cs.unh.edu