CSCE 312 Lecture 1

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Course Introduction

Fundamental organization and structure of computer systems from a software/programmer's point of view:

• Overview of Computer Systems
• Data Representation
• Machine Language
• Processor Architecture
• Memory Hierarchy
• Linking
• Exception control flow
• Virtual Memory
• System level I/O

Data Representation

Finite precision:

• 32-bit integers, for example, have maximum range (−2, 147, 483, 648 ... 2,147,483,647)
• Floating point calculations: (1e20 + −1e20) + 3.14 = 3.14, but 1e20 + (−1e20 + 3.14) ≠ 3.14