SS G516

Computer Organization and Software

Systems

Nirmal K Gupta
nirmalgupta@bits-pilani.ac.in
An Introduction to the Course...
Objective
 Understand the basic organization of modern
computer systems.
 Understand how computer programs are
organized, stored, and executed at the
machine level.
 Conceptual understanding of a computing
platform (architecture, operating system, and
program execution environment)
 Develop the ability to utilize the platform
effectively in the process of constructing and
running programs.
An Introduction to the Course...
Scope:
 Features of Computer Organization and Systems
Software that can be used by a programmer to
obtain the best leverage out of a computing
platform.
 Representation and manipulation of both program
data and program code are emphasized throughout
the course.
 System features such as Virtual Memory, Memory
Management or Pipelining are covered from a
programmer’s perspective.
Materials

Textbook:
 Computer Systems – A Programmer’s Perspective
by Randal Bryant and David O’Hallaron. Pearson
Education. 2003.
Reference Books:
 Computer Systems Performance Evaluation and
Prediction by Howard Michel, and Paul Fortier.
Elsevier.
 Computer Architecture: A quantitative approach by
Patterson and Hennessy. Morgan Kauffman
 Operating System Principles by Silberschatz et. al.
John Wiley.
Evaluation

Evaluation Scheme:
•Test 1 (CB): 20% of grade
•Test 2 (CB): 20% of grade
•Assignments (Take home): 24% of grade
•Comprehensive Exam (Partly OB): 36% of
grade
Course web site:
http://csis/faculty/nirmal/coss/
•Slides will be there
•Also readings, Assignments, notices,...
Take Home Assignments
Programming, exploration assignments
• To be prepared: have account on prithvi server.
• Form teams of at most 2 for the assignments (unless
it is an individual assignment).
• Inform me your team through Email (
nirmalgupta@bits-pilani.ac.in) mentioning group
member’s Name and ID before 15th Jan.
• Deadlines for assignments will be posted on webpage.
• It wont be accepted, after deadline.
• No copying of any kind.
• No makeups.
Malpractice Regulations:
• Any student or team of students found involved in
mal-practices in working out assignments will be
awarded a zero for that assignment and will be
blacklisted.
• Any student or team of students found repeatedly –
more than once across all courses – involved in mal-
practices will be reported to the Disciplinary
Committee for further action. This will be in addition
to the sanction mentioned above.
• A mal-practice – in this context – will NOT include:
 Helping others to use systems or tools.
 Helping others with high-level design issues.
 Helping others to debug their code.
 Clarifying doubts in algorithm.
Malpractice Regulations:
A mal-practice - in this context - will include but not
be limited to:
- submitting some other student’s / team’s solution(s)
as one’s own;
- copying some other student’s / team’s data or code or
other forms of a solution;
- seeing some other student’s / team’s data or code or
other forms of a solution;
- permitting some other student / team to see or copy
or submit one’s own solution;
- or other equivalent forms of plagiarism wherein the
student or team does not work out the solution and
use some other solution or part thereof (such as
downloading it from the LAN or the WWW).
Questions?
Today’s Lecture

• Course Outline
• Basic Computer Hardware Organization
overview
• Basic Computer Fundamental Concepts
• Program Execution Phases
• Operating System Basics
How Computers Represent Data
• Computerized data is in the form of
bits.
• Bits – smallest unit of data that a
computer can recognize
• Characters can be represented in the
form of different Text/Character
codes.
 ASCII , EBCDIC, Unicode
Source File

ASCII Text
Representation
 Hardware Organization of System

Main Components
1. Main memory 2. Buses 3. CPU 4. I/O Devices
 Hardware Organization of System
Main memory
• Usually Referred as RAM (Random Access Memory) Temporary
Storage [Volatile]
• RAM Holds Programs/Data while they are in use.
• Divided in different memory cells. Each memory cell is given a
unique address.

0
N = Number of memory Cells
1
Word Size = Number of Bits that 2

can be stored in a memory cell

N-1

Destructive Write / Non-destructive Read Features

Two Types :
1. DRAM : Dynamic RAM [ Must be refreshed Frequently]
2. SRAM : Static RAM [ Can hold contents for longer period, Costly]
Hardware Organization of System
Bus

• Path between components a computer

• Two Types:
1. Internal [ System Bus]
2. External [ Expansion Bus]
• System Bus Resides on the mother board and connects
CPU to other devices that resides on the mother board.
• Expansion bus connects external devices such as key
board, mouse, modem, printer to CPU

• System Bus has two parts

1. Data Bus
• Electrical path between CPU , memory and other
hardware devices on the board, Bidirectional
2. Address Bus
• Connects only CPU and RAM
• carries only address for RAM