IC220 - Computer Architecture and Organization - Alpha 2020

General Course Resources

• Calendar/Assignments/Notes
• Course Policy

ARM Resources

• Tips for using your Raspberry Pi
• Summary of best practices for defining functions
• LEGv8 quick reference ("green sheet")
• Official ARM documents:
  • Full ARMv8-a reference manual (7900-page pdf). Most useful part is sect C6.2, alphabetical listing of all instructions, complete with opcodes and all that fun.
  • Programmer's guide for ARMv8-a (296-page pdf). Still covers most of the instructions, but arranged topically and with a lot less detail. Probably easier to find an instruction if you don't know what it's called. The instructions we care about are in sections 6.2-6.4.
  • AAPCS (procedure call standard). It's in an official Github repo as an rst file. This is where you find the conventions for stack and registers that aren't strictly part of what the processor does, but are agreed-upon to make function calls work.
  • Details on using floating point with function calls
• GDB beginner's guide

Other Resources

• CircuitVerse (for digital logic)
• Sample circuits:
  • Latches and flip-flops
  • Candy machine (with explanation)
  • Mux, Register file, and ALU
  • Actual single-cycle ARM implementation (for some instructions)
• Supplemental notes on K-maps

Instructions for submitting "Practice Exercises" prior to Online Meetings

1. Complete the given practice exercises (linked on the calendar) in one of two ways:
   1. Write your answers on a printed copy, then scan all of the pages into a SINGLE pdf file. You might use a physical scanner, or an scan app for your phone. "Genius Scan" seems to work reasonably well, and is free.
   2. Or, annotate the given PDF file digitally in some way (that will still be visible when you submit it!).
2. Ensure that you combine multiple pages into a SINGLE pdf file
3. Ensure that all pages are LEGIBLE and and have the correct ORIENTATION (top-side up).
4. Pages that are unclear, upside-down, or rotated 90 degrees will receive, at most, 50% credit
5. For the very first assignment only:
   • Email your PDF to lmcdowel@usna.edu (subject: "setA1exercises1").
   • You are finished, igore the rest of the steps.
6. For all other assignments:
   • Go to https://submit.moboard.com/ and login.
     • If you have trouble, select the "Login via email" option. Enter you address, submit, then check your messages. Note that you probably WILL need to do this at some point, so make a note that this "email login" is an option.
   • Find the relevant assignment (select it from the drop-down in top right of the screen)
     • The "COVERSHEET" part of the exercises will specify the name of the assignment (see top right corner, something like "setA1exercises2")
   • Click on your user name (top left), then use "Upload submission" option.
   • Note that this site is NOT the same as submit.cs.usna.edu -- do NOT use submit.cs.usna.edu, even if you are at USNA

For problems with this page, contact Luke McDowell