CS1104: Computer Organisation http://www.comp.nus.edu.

sg/~cs1104

Lecture 1: Introduction

Lecture 1: Introduction

Overview History of Computers Application Areas Types of Computers Computer Configurations Computers as Information Processors

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

Lecture 1: Introduction
Basic Machine Hardware Architecture

CPU Memory/Storage Main Memory Input/Output Devices Flowcharts Languages Operating Systems System Utilities Applications

Basic Machine Software

Whats in CS1104
CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 3

Overview of Part 1 (1/2)

Number system: how is information
represented in a computer. Boolean Algebra: the basis for logic design and manipulation of information. Logic gates: what are the gates used, and how circuits can be made from gates. Function simplification: to reduce the size of design, increase speed, etc.

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

Overview of Part 1 (2/2)

Combinational circuits: simple circuit design
without memory.

Sequential circuits: circuit design with

memory.

Disk: storage techniques. Bus: internal communication. I/O: devices, technology, etc.

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

History of Computers (1/4)

Abacus invented in Babylonia in 3000BC Adding machine by Blaise Pascal (1642) Difference engine and the analytical engine by
Charles Babbage (1842)

IBM first electromechanical computer (using

relays) designed by Howard Aiken (1937) was based on punched cards.
used to calculate tables of mathematical functions

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

History of Computers (2/4)

1st Generation Computers (1940s to early 1950s)
based on vacuum tubes technology.
1943 ENIAC: first fully electronic computer,

designed by John Mauchly 1944 Mark I: Howard Aiken 1946 EDVAC: first stored program computers, designed by John von Neumann

2nd Generation Computers (late 50s to early 60s)

based on transistors technology.
more reliable, less expensive, low heat dissipation IBM 7000 series, DEC PDP-1
CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 7

History of Computers (3/4)

3rd Generation Computers (late 60s to early 80s)
integrated circuits (IC).
IBM 360 series, DEC PDP-8 IC many transistors packed into single container
low prices, high packing density

4th Generation Computers (present day) LSI/VLSI

small size, low-cost, large memory, ultra-fast PCs to

supercomputers

5th Generation Computers (future)

massively parallel, large knowledge bases, intelligent Japan, Europe and US advanced research programs
CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 8

History of Computers (4/4)

Websites
ACM Timeline of Computing History

(http://www.computer.org/computer/timeline) The Virtual Museum of Computing (http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/other/mus eums/computing.html) IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (http://www.computer.org/annals/) and others (surf the web)
CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 9

Application Areas (1/2)

Scientific: weather forecasting, simulation, spaceprogram.
one of the earliest application areas. heavy computation but small amount of data.

Commercial: accounting, banking, inventory,

sales.
changes nature of business information is money. high data throughput, simple calculations.

Manufacturing: numerical control, CAD/CAM,

integration.
graphics, interfacing, device-drivers, networks.
CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 10

Application Areas (2/2)

Real-time & Control System: air-traffic
control, aircraft,nuclear power station.
real time, very fast, safety-critical.

Educational & Recreational

CAI software, multi-media, games, Internet,

World Wide Web.

Telecommunication
Network, StarHub CableTV, Singapore One.

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

11

Types of Computers (1/2)

Supercomputers:
very fast (Gflops) but expensive machine($10m), vector

or parallel processors, used in scientific applications and simulations.

Mainframes:
fast (>10mips) but expensive ($1m), high-throughput,

used in large commercial organisations, support many concurrent users interactively.

Mini-computers:
fast but affordable ($200k), used in medium-sized

organisations (e.g. SoC), support multiple users.

CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 12

Types of Computers (2/2)

Workstations:
affordable ($20k) and fast single-user systems (20

riscs mips), good graphics capabilities, engineering, network-based computing.

Micro/Personal/Home Computers:
cheap and affordable ($3k), transportable, home use,

good for games and as educational tool, word processing, suitable for small enterprise.

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

13

Computer Configurations (1/3)

Stand-alone computer system

Modem connection

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

14

Computer Configurations (2/3)

Terminals-host connections

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

15

Computer Configurations (3/3)

Network of computers

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

16

Computers as Information Processors (1/3)

Driver

Example: An automobile augments our power of locomotion.

A computer is a device capable of solving problems according to designed program. It simply augments our power of storage and speed of calculation.
CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction

Programmer
17

Computers as Information Processors (2/3)

Unlike previous inventions, computers are special

because they are general-purpose.
Could be used to perform a variety of tasks.

Computer = Hardware + Software.

Hardware: physical components for

computation/processing; should be simple, fast, reliable. Software: set of instructions to perform tasks to specifications; should be flexible, user-friendly, sophisticated.

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

18

Computers as Information Processors (3/3)

Computer are Information Processors
Raw data Computer system Processed information

Data Units:
1 bit (binary digit): one of two values (0 or 1) 1 byte: 8-bits 1 word: 1, 2, or 4 bytes, or more (depends on ALU)

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

19

Basic Machine Hardware Architecture (1/3)

Main Components:
CPU (Central Processing Unit: controls devices and

processes data). Memory: stores programs and intermediate data. Input Devices: accept data from outside world. Output Devices: presents data to the outside world.

An analogy with Human Information Processors:

CPU brains reasoning powers Memory brains memory Input Devices eyes, ears, sensory sub-system Output Devices mouth, hands, facial and body

expressions
CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 20

Basic Machine Hardware Architecture (2/3)

Headphone (Output) Monitor (Output) Hardware box (contains processor, memory, buses etc.)

Mouse and Keyboard (Input)

CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 21

Basic Machine Hardware Architecture (3/3)

Network card and CRT card Motherboard (Printed Circuit Board) Floppy disk drive and Hard disk drive Slots for RAM chips Processor

Cage for mounting drives

above picture: Patterson and Hennessy

CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 22

Hardware CPU (1/3)

CPU = control unit + ALU + registers

Control Unit : monitors and directs sequences of

instructions

Execution Cycle (repeated):

fetch (next instruction) decode execute

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

23

Hardware CPU (2/3)

ALU: performs simple arithmetic and logical
operations.
Examples: Add, subtract, and, or, invert, increment etc.
A B R = A op B select ALU
n-bits operations

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

24

Hardware CPU (3/3)

Registers: temporary results + status information
ACC (accumulator) current data
PC (program counter) points to next instruction IR (instruction register) current instruction

MA (memory address) address to read/write

MB (memory buffer) data to read/write

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

25

Hardware Memory/Storage (1/2)

Purpose: to store program and data.

Desirable Traits: fast access, large capacity,

economical, non-volatile.

However, most memory devices do not have all

these traits.

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

26

Hardware Memory/Storage (2/2)

Solution: hierarchical combination
Fast, expensive (small numbers), volatile registers main memory disk storage magnetic tapes Slow, cheap (large numbers), non-volatile

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

27

Hardware Main Memory (1/2)

Fast BUT volatile (need power to maintain data) Logical structure table of memory cells/units.
addresses 8 bits or more
0 1 2 3

M A R

address

memory cells

M B R

data
2m-3 2m-2 2m-1

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

28

Hardware Main Memory (2/2)

Memory cells may be grouped into pages (say
512 consecutive words per page).

Units
1 KBytes = 1024 (or 210) bytes

1 MBytes = 1024 Kbytes (or 220 bytes)

1 GBytes = 1024 Mbytes (or 230 bytes)

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

29

Hardware Input/Output Devices

Input devices: read/accept data (into computer)
obsolete: card reader, paper tape reader present: keyboard, mouse, light-pen, optical char

reader future: voice and vision recognition.

Output devices: write/display data (to users)

obsolete: card & paper punch, teletype present: VDU (visual display unit), printers, plotters,

graphics display, sound future: voice synthesis.

CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 30

Basic Machine Software (1/2)

Software is the key to making computers general
purpose.

Software are often built hierarchically, with layers

of software providing successive higher-level of abstractions.

This structure is reflected by the following onion

layer view of software.

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

31

Basic Machine Software (2/2)

Hardware Operating system System utilities

Applications/User programs

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

32

Software Flowcharts (1/2)

The sequence of instructions of a
software/program can be graphically specified using flowcharts. The flowchart technique maybe a little outdated but could still be used in a clear manner for simple problems. As an example, the procedure to find the roots of a quadratic equation, ax2 + bx + c = 0, can be written using the following equation:

roots (b b2 4ac ) / 2a
CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 33

Software Flowcharts (2/2)

This procedure can be coded in the following
flowchart:
roots (b b2 4ac ) / 2a
Read a,b,c
yes

a=0? no d:=b2 - 4ac

Write
not quadratic

d>0 d=0 d<0 > Write

real roots

<

Write
real root

Write
complex roots

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

34

Software Languages (1/4)

All programs will have to be coded in some
programming language usually text-based.

The native language of machine is called machine

language.

This consists of a set of primitive instructions,

coded in numbers.

An example is 0310 0412 0512. But can you

understand what it does?

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

35

Software Languages (2/4)

Possible to use more human-readable mnemonic
instructions. These are know as assembly language instructions.
Mnemonic ADD 10 SUB 12 STO 12 Description AC:=AC+C(10) AC:=AC-C(12) C(12)=AC

Normally, assembly language has a 1-to-1

correspondence with machine language.
Lecture 1: Introduction CS1104-1 36

Software Languages (3/4)

Assembly language is still very primitive. Higher-level Languages, like Pascal, C, Fortran,
which are a little closer to English language have been developed.

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

37

Software Languages (4/4)

An example Pascal program to find roots of
quadratic equation:
read(a,b,c); if a=0 then writeln ("not a quadratic equation") else begin d := sqr(b)-4*a*c; if d>0 then writeln ("complex roots") else if d=0 then writeln("single root =",-b/(2*a)) else writeln ("root1=",-b+sqrt(d)/(2*a), "root2=", -b-sqrt(d)/(2*a)); end;

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

38

Software Operating Systems (1/2)

Operating System (OS) is situated directly above
hardware. It controls and manages the available hardware resources.

Often, OS has special access privileges to

certain categories of instructions and certain hardware

User programs have to go through OS for these

privileges.
CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 39

Software Operating Systems (2/2)

Associated Functions/Tasks:
boots up machine
loads user program allocates main memory/storage space

schedules concurrent user programs

drivers to service various devices (terminals, printers,

etc.)

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

40

Software System Utilities (1/2)

Above the OS, there is a set of frequently
executed programs,called System Utilities. These utilities are often packaged with OS.
Used by programmers/analyst to help develop

applications.

Some examples
Editor: compose/edit user programs or data files Assembler: translates assembly to machine code Compiler: translates high-level language to

assembler/machine code Spooler: temporary stores print files for queuing

CS1104-1 Lecture 1: Introduction 41

Software System Utilities (2/2)

Some examples (continued)
Mailer: forwards/receives mails between users
DBMS (Data-Base Management System): centralised

management of data at a more abstract level than files Window Management System: multiple windows can appear on single screen. These together with various graphical entities (e.g. menus,panels, buttons) can be managed by WMS.

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

42

Software Applications
Word-Processors: compose/edit reports/articles Accounting Package: keeps track of accounting
transactions, produces daily/weekly/monthly (profit/loss) reports

Inventory System: keeps track of stock levels Personnel/Payroll System: staff records, monthly
salary

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

43

Whats in CS1104
Software
Application (Netscape) Compiler Assembler Operating System (Windows XP)

Processor Memory I/O system

Instruction Set Architecture

Datapath & Control

Computer Architecture Digital Logic Design

Hardware

Digital Design
transistors

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

44

End of file

CS1104-1

Lecture 1: Introduction

45