A Programmer's View of Computer Architecture with Assembly Language Examples from the MIPS RISC Architecture

by James Goodman and Karen Miller
published by Oxford University Press
copyright 1993
ISBN: the old Saunders number 0-03-097219-1
the new Oxford Univ. Press number 0-19-513109-6
for more information: e-mail college@oup-usa.org
tel: 1800-624-0153 ext. 5197
fax: 212-726-6450

from the preface:

The material in this book covers topics that have been traditionally covered in an assembly language course. The approach is new and different. Assembly language courses traditionally start by describing bits, bytes, fields, and formats. Many concepts must be taught before anything can be covered in depth: number representation, memory organization, the instruction cycle, addressing modes, and so forth. Yet the students typically have no appreciation of context for the material. They have no motivation for what is to come, or why. A Programmer's View of Computer Architecture capitalizes on what the students already understand: basic programming in a high level language.


Table of Contents

  1. Abstractions and Computers.
  2. SAL -- A Simple Abstract Language.
  3. Number Systems.
  4. Data Representation.
  5. Arithmetic and Logical Operations.
  6. Floating Point Arithmetic.
  7. Data Structures.
  8. Registers and MAL.
  9. Procedures.
  10. The Assembly Process.
  11. Input and Output.
  12. Interrupts and Exception Handling.
  13. Architectural Performance.
  14. Alternative Architectures.

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