Advanced Processors and Course Wrapup Fall 2007

Abstract: Machine Structures - Fall 2007. The CS61 series is an introduction to computer science, with particular emphasis on software and on machines from a programmer's point of view. The first two courses considered programming at a high level of abstraction, introducing a range of programming paradigms and common techniques. This course, the last in the series, concentrates on machines and how they carry out the programs you write. The main topics of CS61C involve the low-level system software and the hardware organization of a "logical machine" — not the actual electronic circuits, but the computational operations that those circuits carry out. To make these ideas concrete, you will study the structure of a particular computer, the MIPS R2000 processor, in some detail, down to the level of the design of the processor's on-chip components. Some of this study involves programming in assembly language. In real life, you'll probably never actually write programs at this level, but for us it serves as a vehicle for teaching about computer architecture.