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Computer Organization II, Spring 2010, Exercise 2

These homework exercises will be covered in practice session on week 4 (Wed 27.1).

This week's homework covers the digital logic and bus.

SPECIAL TASK:

Submit on paper (1 to 2 pages) in the exercise meeting on Wednesday 27.1. a report which has two parts

  1. Learning diary

    The submitted learning diary should reflectively comment your studies over the past period since the previous learning diary. The Internet is full of instruction on how to maintain a learning diary. A good example of a learning diary style that might suite well is on page http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/dcee/staff/paulfilmore/learn/learndry.html. It is not the only example and you can follow another model, if you are maintaining a learning diary regularly already.

    This submission requires you to go through your notes in your learning diary and write down your observations about your learning. (If you maintain the diary among all courses, the comments need not be specific to this course).

    Issues you could focus from this course's perspective at this phase of the course are:

    • Write down a short comment about your goals for this course
    • List three topics you feel that you already master well and three topics you think that you need more practise in your skills and/or knowledge. These issues can be course content or working styles.
    • Mention also something about how you study the material and do the homeworks

  2. Article

    Look at the article: J. Mashey, The Long Road to 64 bits. Communications of the ACM, Volume 52, Number 1, January 2009, pp. 45-53.

    The article gives one person's perspective and reasoning about one of the several major transitions that has happened or is currently happening in the computing world.

    Please write a short (1 page) essay or commentary that gives your viewpoint to this matter. How do you see it? You may choose one (or more) of the listed reasons. Please justify your selection.

    There is no need for you to agree with the article. You can also argue against the article.

    Please notice that you need not read and memorize the article. You just need to be able to make your own opinion. The article gives you good background and a lot of possible ways for reasoning.

  3. Remember to put your name on the paper. Mention also which exercise group you plan to participate in exercise meeting 3 on Wed 3.2.

This is a personal paper and it needs to show your own thinking. This is also used a one of the bases for the grading. Just by doing something, but not demonstrating in the written text your own thinking and view points you may get at most 2 points, when the maximum points available is 4.

HOMEWORK:

  1. Boolean expressions and gates
    1. Problem 20.4 (Sta06: B.4, p.731; Sta03: A.4)
    2. Problem 20.6 (Sta06: B.6, p.731; Sta03: A.6)

  2. Circuits: Problem 20.8. (a-c) (Sta06: B.8; Sta03: A.8)
    Note: The Boolean expression format is enough, there is no need to draw the circuit itself.

  3. VAX SBI and PCI bus write
    1. Problem 3.9 [Sta09 & Sta06]     (Sta03: 3.8)
    2. Problem 3.19 [Sta09 & Sta06]     (Sta03: 3.10)  

  4. Multibus
    1. Problem 3.8 [Sta09 & Sta06]     (Sta03: 3.7 [Stal03])
    2. How does one prevent two devices to act simultaneously as Bus Masters, when they both try to use the bus at the same time? Who makes the decision? Which device (or devices) get the turn? How does one know that it got the turn?
    3. What determines, how many devices can be attached to the bus?

  5. PCI-bus.
    1. Assume that the memory circuit can locate the target data in one, two or 3 clock cycles. How does the memory circuit tell this to the CPU?
      See Fig 3.23 [Sta09 & Sta06 & Sta03]
    2. Assume that the last data set has only 1 byte of data even though the data bus is 32 bits wide. Who determines which 8 wires are used to transmit that byte? When and how that information is given to the other party?
    3. What happens if three devices want simultaneously use the bus? Who makes the decision? Which device (or devices) get the turn? How does one know that it got the turn? Will signals get crossed, when all devices have the REQ-pin at the same location?

Tiina.Niklander@cs.helsinki.fi

 
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