Computer Orginization
Completed: Spring 2023
Grade: A
Course Description
An in-depth study of computer architecture and design, including topics such as RISC and CISC instruction set architectures, CPU organizations, pipelining, memory systems, input/output, and parallel machines. Emphasis is placed on performance measures and compilation issues.
Reflection
This course was an introduction to the low-level ideas that go along with programming. The idea that all code boils down to machine code and that assembly gives us a way to visualize machine instructions in a human readable format. It stressed the importance of knowing what the machine is doing when it runs your code in order to write better, faster code. The course focused on MIPS assembly with the use of emulators to allow us to practice writing assembly by hands. However, assembly was only part of the courses focus and it also saw discussion of hardware design and concepts built upon that (eg. cache hierachy). For a little while I felt like I might have accidently become a Computer Engineering major! This class also sparked my love for low level programming .