CSC258: Computer

Organization
Original Instructor & Slides: Steve Engels, sengels@cs.toronto.edu

Instructor: Maziar Goudarzi, goudarzi@ece.utoronto.ca

Marshall Ho, marshall.ho@utoronto.ca
Breaking down CSC258
CSC258 Course Details
 Lectures
 Lectures cover topics (generally one per week)
 Each week builds on the week before
 Tutorials
 30 minutes topic review (from previous week)
 30 minutes lab prep (for following week)
CSC258 Course Details
 Labs (28%):
 7 total (4% each)
 Each lab consists of two parts:
 Pre-lab exercises (1%, submitted ahead of time)
 In-lab demonstrations (3%): perform lab tasks for
TAs in the lab rooms (BA3145, BA3155, BA3165).
 Must work in pairs, in your assigned room.
 The partner and lab station you choose in Lab 1
are fixed for all remaining labs.
 No eating or drinking allowed in the lab rooms.
CSC258 Course Details
 Project (14%):
 Project proposal (2%)
 3 milestone demos (4% each)
 Goal: Large, cool digital creation.
 Exams:
 Midterm (18%) – Feb 26, 7pm-9pm in SS1071, SS
1083, SS 1087, WI 1016, WI 1017.
 Email us ASAP if you have conflicts.
 Final exam (40%)
 Must get 40% to pass the course.
Finally, two common questions

What is the point of this

course?
Why are you making
me take this?
 “Why are you making me take this?”

 CSC258 isn’t needed if you’re just a causal

technology user.
 You can still drive a
car, even if you don’t
understand how the
engine works.
“Why are you making me take this?”

 Computer science majors aren’t casual

technology users.
 At the very least, you’ll
need to know how the
programs you write are
affected by hardware.
 Processor knowledge is
needed for OS courses.
 Assembly language is
needed for low-level
tasks like compilers.
“What is the point of this course?”

 Course outcomes:
 Understand the underlying
architecture of computer
systems.
 Learn how to best use this
architecture to store data
and create behaviour.
 Use the principles of
hardware design to create
digital logic solutions to
given problems.
“What is the point of this course?”

 Our course goals:

 Make you a better computer scientist.
 Expose you to new programming paradigms.
 Give deeper insights into past/current courses.
 Help prepare you for future courses.
 How we do this:
 Show you how your computer works.
 Start from electricity, end with assembly.
Let the learning begin
 A few questions to start
 How much do you actually understand about your
computer and the programs you run?
 For instance:
1. When you set a variable to “false” or “true”, how are
these boolean values stored?
2. Why is there a maximum value for an int?
3. Is it cheaper to do an addition operation or a multiplication?
4. How do boolean operations like “and”, “or” and “not” work?
5. What happens when you press Ctrl-Alt-Delete?
6. What happens when you compile a Java or C program?
7. What causes a blue screen error on your computer?
CSC258 has the answers
 Computers are physical things, therefore they
have certain behaviours and limitations.
 For instance:
 Data values are finite.
 All data is stored as ones
and zeroes at some level.
 Many high-level operations
depend on low-level ones.
 The way computers are
today take their origins from how computers
were created in the past.
Example #1: Booleans
 How are boolean values stored?
 Example: if statements:

if x:
print ‘Hello World’
# what values of x will make
# this print out “Hello World”?

 What if x is a boolean?
All comes down to
 What if x is an int?
hardware in the end!
 What if x is a string?
Example #2: Integers
 How are int values stored?
 Again, as ones and zeroes.

12345  0011000000111001

 How many values can integers have?

 This can vary based on language and architecture,
but generally integers have 232 different values.
 Signed integers: range from -231 to 231-1
 Unsigned integers: range from 0 to 232-1
 Different ranges for long, short and byte.
What does it all mean?
 Computers do on the hardware level what
programs do on the software level.

 Understanding that software is just the outer

layer to the underlying hardware will help you
better understand software behaviour.
Programming parallels

Python/Java Computer hardware

 Boolean variables  High and low wire values
 Boolean operations (and,  Logic gates (AND, OR,
or, not, etc) NOT, etc)
 Integers, doubles, chars  Registers
 Addition, subtraction,  Adder circuits, multiplier
multiplication circuits
 Storing values  Memory
 Executing instructions  Processors
What you should already know
Programming from CSC148
 You need to have basic coding literacy.

 However…
 For CSC258, be prepared to let that all go.
 Verilog → specification language
 Assembly → low-level programming
 Trying to connect these languages to CSC148 will
only hold you back.
 Embrace new ways of thinking!
 Logic from CSC165
 Thanks to CSC165, you’re already familiar with the
first piece of CSC258: basics of logic gates.
 CSC165 example: Create an expression that is true
if the variables A and B are true, or C and D are
true.
G = A & B | C & D

 CSC258 example: Create a circuit that turns on if

inputs A and B are on, or inputs C and D are on:
A
B
G
C
D
CSC165 for circuit design
 Starting with CSC165: A
Y
 Create simple circuits based on B
logical (boolean) expressions
 Combine circuits together to create A
Y
bigger and more complicated B
systems.
 The smallest logical operations
are represented by pieces of A Y

hardware called gates.

 Like boolean expressions, gates A
determine whether the ouput of a Y
B
circuit will be on or off as an
expression of the input signals.
AND Gates A
Y
B

A B
Y A B Y
0 0 0
+ 0 1 0
-
1 0 0
1 1 1
OR Gates A
Y
B
A

B Y
A B Y
+ 0 0 0
-
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 1
 NOT Gates
A Y

+
-
A
A Y
Y
0 1
1 0
This is another A
transistor, which
connects the two sides
when A is turned off.
Note that its state
(on/off) is the
complement of the
other switch below.
More on this later too.
XOR Gates A
Y
B

A B

Y
+
- A B Y
0 0 0
A B
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0
Bill Gates

 …ha ha…moving on….

 NAND Gates A
Y
B
+
-
A B

A A B Y
0 0 1
B
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0
NOR Gates A
Y
B
+
- A

A B Y

A B 0 0 1
0 1 0
1 0 0
1 1 0
Buffer
A Y

Y
+ A Y
-
0 0
1 1
From gates back to CSC165 (the little
circle here
acts like a
 Given a logic problem A NOT gate)

or circuit, can you make B

Y
a truth table to describe A
its behavior (as in C
CSC165)?
A B C Y
 Can also be illustrated 0 0 0
using a waveform. 0 0 1
C 0 1 0
0 1 1
B
1 0 0
A 1 0 1

Y 1 1 0
1 1 1
From expressions to circuits
 Creating and expressing circuit logic is similar to
working with boolean logic in Python, C or Java:

Y = (!A and !B and !C) or (!A and

B and C) or (A and B and C)

¬A
¬B
¬C
¬A
B Y
C
A
B
C
Things you might not know yet
Thinking in hardware
 Although CSC258 has elements
that are similar to other
courses, it is very different
in significant ways.
 Unlike software courses,
CSC258 is not about creating
programs and algorithms, but
rather devices and machines.
 Very important concept to
grasp early in this course!
 For instance: We need to understand what certain terms
mean in the context of hardware.
“True” and “False” in CSC258
 If a circuit performs a logical operation, how
does it represent “true” and “false”?
 In hardware, these boolean values are represented as
electrical voltage values on a wire:
 “False” (aka zero): little to no voltage at that point.
 “True” (aka one): typically a voltage difference of 5
volts, relative to the ground.

+ +
-
R vR -
R vR
Behind gates
 For electricians, switches
are physical devices for +
R vR =0
manually closing a circuit. -

 Gates are like switches,

which control whether an
output wire will have a
high value (5V) or a low +
value (0V) -
R vR =1
 Unlike physical switches,
gates are semi-conductor
devices that take electrical
inputs to close the circuit.
Expressions => Circuits
 CSC258 tasks assume that we have input signals
can be turned on (one) or off (zero), and we need
outputs that act as a function of these signals.
 Example #1: If the Ctrl, Alt and Delete buttons are
being pressed, restart the computer.
 Example #2: If a train is approaching the platform,
only turn on the green signal light if the track is clear
and the previous train is a certain distance away.
 Every electronic device uses gates to combine
input signals to create these output signals.
 Very similar to CSC165 problems, but in hardware.
Example: Ctrl-Alt-Delete
Ctrl Alt Del RESTART
0 0 0 0
Ctrl Alt 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0
0 1 1 0
+ Del
- 1 0 0 0
1 0 1 0
RESTART 1 1 0 0
1 1 1 1
What we ask you to do (e.g. labs)

 Given a truth table or A B C MOVE

circuit description, 0 0 0 1
determine the circuit that
0 0 1 0
creates it.
0 1 0 0
 Look at the conditions
that cause high output 0 1 1 1
signals. 1 0 0 0
 Express the high 1 0 1 0
conditions as a Boolean 1 1 0 0
statement, then convert 1 1 1 1
this to gates.
The course at a glance

Assembly Language

Processors
Arithmetic Finite State
Logic Units Machines
Devices Flip-flops
Circuits
Gates

Transistors
Starting from the bottom
 Gates can combine values together like
logical operators in C or Java.
 But how do gates work?
 First, we need to
understand electricity.
 Then, we need to
understand transistors.
Resources put for you on
Quercus
 Course infosheet
 Quercus/Canvas: https://q.utoronto.ca
 Login with your UTORid
 Go to CSC258 course
 Under the Modules menu
 Lab breadboard demo
 DE1-SoC pin assignment file
 Many more: educational videos, Quartus
installation and usage guides, Verilog tutorials,…