1. Hardware and Software Basics Shirley Moore and Kay Roy CS 1401 Spring 2013 January 24/28, 2013

2. Today’s Agenda Syllabus discussion (5 min) Qualtrics survey results (3 min) History of Computing recap (7 min) Sharing of computer history timeline information (15 min) Computers and Computational Processes lecture/discussion/demo (40 min) Reflection (5 min) Special guest (5 min)

3. Computational Process What is a computational process? What is not a computational process? – Calculating final grades for a class – Reading a book – Changing gears in an automatic transmission car – Learning to ride a bicycle – Solving a system of linear equations – Solving a math word problem – Playing chess

4. Restricted Over-simplified Definition A computational process takes input and manipulates it by executing a sequence of instructions to produce output.

5. Von Neumann Architecture Note that both instructions and data are stored in memory. What of the above is true for today’s computers? What of the above is an over-simplification for today’s computers?

6. Execution of a Computational Process by a von Neumann Computer 1Load program into memory 2Repeat until done (fetch-decode-execute cycle) a.Fetch instruction into control unit b.Decode instruction c.Execute instruction (e.g., read value from memory, arithmetic operation, write value to memory, read from input device, write to output device) Do demo at http://ib- computing.net/html/FlashMovies/FE_cycle.htmhttp://ib- computing.net/html/FlashMovies/FE_cycle.htm

7. Learn the Lingo! Bits and Bytes – http://guides.macrumors.com/Bits_And_Bytes http://guides.macrumors.com/Bits_And_Bytes Computing Units – http://guides.macrumors.com/Computing_Units http://guides.macrumors.com/Computing_Units When kilo ≠1000 – 1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes – Why?

8. Intel CPU Trends

9. Moore’s Law Moore, Gordon E. (1965). "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits”, Electronics Magazine."Cramming more components onto integrated circuits”

10. Dual-core Processor Image from Wikipedia Commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dual_Core_Generic.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dual_Core_Generic.svg

11. Dual core: 2 x 3 GHz < 6 GHz Why? When is a second core useful? When does a second core NOT help?

12. Intel Sandy Bridge Processor Image from The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/25/intel_westmere_ex_sandy_bridge _ep_xeons/page3.html

13. Sandy Bridge Core Microarchitecture Image from http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169087 http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169087

14. Why Multicore? Advantages Disadvantages