ECE 101 Exploring Electrical Engineering Chapter 9 Programming Development Environment Herbert G. Mayer, PSU Status 3/1/2016

Syllabus What is a Program? What is a Computer? Holding Data Programming Languages Machine Language Sample Compiler Linker Loader

What is a Program A computer program is a sequence of executable machine instructions, reading information (input), computing new data, and generating output, according to the steps of an algorithm An algorithm is a finite sequence of instructions, reading information (input), computing new data, and generating output The two are almost synonymous, except that the program executes (AKA runs) on a computer, the algorithm is just an abstraction in our mind or written on paper

What is a Program The algorithm coded in a programming language becomes your program (noun) Why relevant to Electrical Engineers? Sooner or later you will acquire programming skills Either in a general purpose programming language Or a special programming language controlling a connected board Can be external or inserted internal into backplane of a computer But you will program (verb) eventually

What is a Computer A computer is a physical device that can read input, compute, and produce corresponding output It “understands” a small set of machine instructions, which it can execute, one at a time (for a uni-processor) It is possible, but very tedious, to write a program in such machine instructions An Assembler eases this tediousness by allowing users to write abstract data and symbolic instructions, which the assembler then translates into machine code A compiler (similar: an interpreter) reads higher-level programs and maps them into assembly code; or sometimes into machine code directly And you, EEs, will design and build the next generation of computers

What is a Computer Main Memory (RAM, ROM) Auxiliary Storage (e.g., disk drives) Input (e.g., keyboard, mouse) Output (e.g., monitor, printer) Processor (CPU)

Computer’s Processor – CPU or ALU Registers (fast storage) Memory Interface Instruction Decoder To main memory The ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) performs basic arithmetic, logic, and comparison operations. ALU

Holding Data A computer holds a good amount of data in memory The size of such a memory (AKA primary storage) is defined by the architecture’s address range E.g. on a 32-bit architecture, memory can be as large as 2 32 different addressable units Often such units are bytes, i.e. 8-bit addressable, contiguous units; other architectures use 60-bit words Large amounts of data are stored on secondary storage devices, such as rotating disks or SSDs Access to data in memory is slow, about times slower than executing one instruction Access to data on disk is even 10,000s of times slower

Holding Data Getting data from memory into the processor (usually a machine register) is called a load operation Moving data from a register to memory is called a store operation Such transport proceeds on a bus; the width of the bus and its speed are critical for the overall execution speed of the machine and thus of your programs

Programming Languages Even writing assembly source code is highly tedious Since the 1960s, higher-level programming languages have been developed Some of these are machine-independent; others highly machine-dependent (AKA architecture- dependent), e.g. C++ or Java A machine-independent language allows writing of source programs (code) that can be executed on different machines, provided a compiler is available on each This is referred to a portability of source programs, quite a desirable property!

Programming Language Milestones

1969 to 1973 – C (Bell Labs initial development) 1978 – K&R C (Kernighan and Ritchie) 1989 – C89 (ANSI) 1990 – C90 (ISO) 1995 – C90 Normative Amendment 1 → "C95” 1999 – C99 (ISO) 2011 – C11 (ISO) C Language Milestones

Machine Language Sample 600: A9 5ALDA #$5A; Load accumulator with number 602: 18CLC; Clear carry flag 603: 69 20ADC #$20; Add $20 to accumulator w/carry 605: 8D 00 10STA $1000; Store accumulator at $1000 Assembler translates an assembly program to machine language Assembly language still requires a high level of programmer expertise

Compiler Compiler is a special-purpose system program that reads source programs, written in the source language and translates them into machine language Mapping into machine language (AKA object code) sometimes involves an intermediate step: Creating assembly source first, and then using the assembler to generate machine code A compiler generally understands just one input language; exceptions are some C++ compilers that also read C source Compilers emit error messages when certain violations are detected, referring messages to line numbers

Compiler Source files contain the C++ program code .cpp extension (file is in text format); also.c Header files can contain prototypes, macros, data type declarations, or source code .h extension (file is in text format) Object files contain intermediate compiled code .o -or-.obj extension Executable files contain runnable binary code .out -or-.exe -or- no extension

Compiler preprocessor → handles preprocessor directives and expands macro definitions compiler → takes preprocessed source code files and translates them to intermediate code; for beginners it is convenient to view the other system programs as part of the compiler assembler → takes intermediate code files and translates them to binary object code linker → resolves references among the object files and the libraries. It puts all the parts together to create the single, final, executable object file

16 prog_1.c prog_2.c prog_3.c etc. Source files prog_1.o prog_2.o prog_3.o etc. Object files prog Executable file stdio stdlib math etc. Library files Compiler PreprocessorLinker prog_1.h prog_2.h prog_3.h etc. User Header files stdio.h stdlib.h math.h etc. Library Header files Assembler Compiler

Linker Often programs are composed of multiple source programs For example, some projects are too large to have a single programmer develop all code in sequence Also system function, such as input, output, heap acquisitions etc. are provided in the PDE, and do need to be coded by the programmer All such elements are linked together into a single, executable object program That is the work of the system’s linker For C or C++ on Unix the link step is frequently hidden, i.e. not visible to the programmer

Loader When a program has been linked, it is still not executing, not even loaded! Instead, it is just a binary file, residing on some disk, as an object file, but ready to run To run such object code, it must be loaded into memory and be granted processor execution time That is the purpose of the system loader Generally, the loader and load function are not directly visible to the user = programmer

19 Example: Vintage CPU (1975) MOS 6502 Chuck Peddle at MOS Single core 8-bit data Memory  64 KB main  Registers: Accumulator (A) Index (X, Y) Processor Status (P) Stack Pointer (S) Program Counter (PC) Speed: 1 to 2 MHz <- not a typo! Process: 8  m # of transistors: ~3500 Die Shot Pin-out

20 Example: Modern CPU (2013) Intel i Haswell Four cores = processors = CPUs 64-bit data Memory  4x256 KB L2 cache  8 MB L3 cache  32 GB main (3.2x10 7 KB)  Registers: 8 32-bit bit Integrated GPU Speed: 3.4 GHz (3400 MHz) Process: 22 nm (0.022  m) # of transistors: ~1.4 billion Die Shot Package