Revision Notes

Based on Tanenbaum's "Structured Computer Organization" 4th Edition

• Chapter 1. This is just words, by now you should understand everything in the chapter. You won't be asked any histrorical question. You should have some understanding of the difference between the computer families mentioned in the book.
• Chapter 2. 2.1,2.2 ,2.3.1 2.4.1. You should understand the difference between Interrupts and Polling. (You have to have understood this to do the I/O assignment).
• Chapter 3. 3.1,3.2.3 , 3.3.1,3.3.2. You be able to understand of 3.5.
• Chapter 4. Microarhitecture. In some ways the machine Mic-1 is similar to the microcoded machine you have used in your laboration. You should understand the idea of a data path 4.1.1., Microinstructions 4.1.2 and Microinstruction Control and 4.1.3. You don't have to memorise the details of the implementation. You must understand what a pipeline is and how pipelining is possible 4.4.4 and 4.4.5 also the tradeoffs in 4.4.1. Caches 4.5.1.
• You should be able to read and understand section 4.6, but you won't be expected to memorise these details.
• Chapter 5 5.1.
• Chapter 6 6.1 ,(not 6.1.6,6.1.7,6.1.8 ) You should understand what a TLB is sec. 6.1.9 and look at 6.1.10.
• Assembly Language. If you can do your laborations then you should know all you need to know about MIPS assembly language. You might be given small fragments of code to comment on, or be asked to write small fragments of code.