CS 2734 Computer Organization II

To review for the exam you should make sure that you can do the following:

• Instruction cycle:
  • Explain each step of the cycle.
  • Hand trace execution of instructions on a simple machine.
  • Explain pipelining and be able to show pipelined execution for different numbers of stages.
  • Draw a Gantt chart of the timing of instruction execution.

• Sparc assembly language:
  • Explain basic Sparc architecture:
    • Load and store architecture
    • Registers
    • Register windows (and how they are used in function calls).
    • Delay slots
  • Write Sparc functions that have simple loops, logic and arrays.
  • Implement automatic and static variables including arrays in Sparc.
  • Parameter passing (value versus reference).
  • Make a correspondence between program layout of a C program and what is done in Sparc.
  • Diagram the calling frame during the execution of a Sparc function call.
  • Encode format 3 Sparc instructions.

• The assembly process:
  • Explain the two-pass assembly process.
  • Hand assemble both passes of a MAC-1 assembly language program.

• Number systems and arithmetic:
  • Perform base conversion to arbitrary bases.
  • Understand one's complement, two's complement and sign magnitude representations.
  • Perform simple signed arithmetic in one's complement and two's complement.

Revision Date: 2/26/97