The computer-architecture tag has no wiki summary.
2
votes
1answer
159 views
Why did Aiken decided to separate data and instructions in the Harvard Mark I?
When Aiken devised the Mark I, why did he decided to separate data and instructions? It was not mentioned in Wikipedia (or in any other searches I've looked) on how or why Aiken separated data and ...
2
votes
1answer
145 views
Is there genetic relationship between ARM and PDP-11 architectures?
Reading about ARM architecture I found many similarities to PDP-11 architecture which did not exist between ARM and x86.
For example,
General-purpose registers named Rx compared to AX, BX,... for ...
8
votes
9answers
864 views
How does understanding computer architecture help a programmer? [duplicate]
It is said, by Mike P. Wittie, in the course curriculum of computer architecture that,
Students need to understand computer architecture in order to
structure a program so that it runs more ...
7
votes
1answer
302 views
How are operating systems compiled and booted the very first time?
I'm interested in how operating systems work. I've been reading some articles about Linux and seem to understand how it all generally comes together, but I feel like there's a chicken and egg dilemma ...
1
vote
2answers
194 views
How Do Computers Process Conditional/Input/ Event Based Code?
I understand that computers are basically a complex system of electrical signatures that can calculate based on logic boards, and some sort of gate mechanism, but how do computers process something ...
7
votes
3answers
530 views
Why isn't DSM for unstructured memory done today?
Edit: Comments suggested, that DSM just faded out by being not used recently. What were the reasons for this, what are DSMs drawbacks? Literature lists many positive aspects like
easy to port ...
0
votes
3answers
165 views
Instruction vs data cache usage
Say I've got a cache memory where instruction and data have different cache memories ("Harvard architecture"). Which cache, instruction or data, is used most often? I mean "most often" as in time, not ...
2
votes
3answers
578 views
How many bits' address is required for a computer with n bytes of memory?
How many bits of address is required (for the program counter for example) in a byte-addressed computer with 512 Mbyte RAM?
What does the formula look like?
How is this connected with the fact that ...
4
votes
5answers
816 views
How can I tell whether my computer is Harvard or von Neumann architecture?
I understand the difference between the two architectures is the separation of instructions from data in the Harvard architecture. But how do I know which type of system I'm on? Is it possible to ...
17
votes
2answers
772 views
Has Little Endian won?
When teaching recently about the Big vs. Little Endian battle, a student asked whether it had been settled, and I realized I didn't know. Looking at the Wikipedia article, it seems that the most ...
2
votes
1answer
205 views
List structures in memory
Could anyone give an overview of how list structures which are composed of a
head and a tail which references the rest of the list i.e linked list are represented in memory of the computer? Does the ...
1
vote
1answer
170 views
When to distinguish OS versions in canonical names for target platforms
I would like to organize my company's software releases by platform. I've looked at how Mozilla, Perforce, and Apache organize their releases, and it seems that I should partition by OS and processor ...
5
votes
2answers
496 views
Why do computer architecture textbooks prefer MIPS architecture?
I have read a lot of computer architecture textbooks, and I wonder why most of them (if not all) used MIPS as the architecture to teach. Why MIPS and not Intel or AMD or something else? What makes the ...
2
votes
3answers
274 views
Computers that operate exclusively on boolean algebra
I was wondering if there are any computers that operate exclusively on boolean operations. For example, no add, sub, mult, or div in the instruction set (although these could be emulated with the ...
2
votes
0answers
230 views
Things about Computer Architecture every programmer should know [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Learning computer architecture as a programmer
I've been programming in java since last 4 years. Due to this, i havent had much chance to interact with low level stuff. ...
1
vote
1answer
289 views
online computer architecture courses? [closed]
I was interested in taking a computer architecture course at a community college because it's listed as a prereq for a CS masters program I was interested (my undergrad was not in CS). However, it ...
2
votes
3answers
136 views
Making a basic computer that adds number passed by the user [closed]
What are the things that I should be familiar with to make my own computer that can add two numbers, in the same way that happens in a calculator? Can anyone please give me links that teach these ...
1
vote
1answer
880 views
Books on computer architecture that covers these topics [closed]
I am looking for a book on computer architecture that starts from a basic level and goes in depth.
I found some books like:
Structured computer organization by Andrew S. Tanenbaum but i also found ...
7
votes
4answers
469 views
Low Level Exercises
I'm pretty comfortable with high-level languages and application development. However, although I have learned about low level topics such as the ones listed below, I have never done anything with ...
3
votes
1answer
416 views
Is it possible to take a binary compiled for ARMv7 architecture and convert it to ARMv6?
Is it possible to take a binary compiled for ARMv7 architecture and convert it to ARMv6 ?
Are there any tools that can do this?
8
votes
8answers
2k views
Learning computer architecture as a programmer [closed]
I typically run across gurus at SO and other places (instructors, book authors etc.) that would say something along the lines "This will cause alignment issues" or other low level tidbits.
I want to ...
3
votes
3answers
897 views
Best general computer science memory data structures book?
What are the best books for understanding how languages work 'under the hood'? If there is anon-language-specific book that discusses more of the general principles, that is preferable. If it is ...
11
votes
4answers
331 views
Can increased usage of higher and higher programming languages lead to a deficit of programmers with computer architecture knowledge?
Quote from Wikipedia of the article "High-level programming language":
A high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In ...
