Goals:
The purpose of this course is to provide the participants with an understanding af a computer as a system of hardware and software components. The hardware components are processors, memories and peripheral devices. The software components are the low-level system programs such as interrupt routines, device drivers, process scheduler and memory manager.
Contents:
The hardware and software components of a computer is described as a series of abstractions, each abstraction building on the one below it. At the bottom we have the digital level with its integrated circuits, then the instruction set
architure level defining a set of machine data types and instructions that operate on these data types. At the top we have the operating system level defining the system calls available to the system programmer. Furthermore, it is described how each level can be implemented by the levels below through interpretation or translation. Finally, it is considered how components operating in parallel can interact e.g. how device controllers synchronize with device drivers.
Literature:
To be announced
Evaluation
Oral examination, 13-scale
Lecturer:
Ole Caprani
Credits:
2 points, 10 ECTS
Semester
Fall