Computer Systems - A Programmer’s Perspective

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1: A Tour of Computer Systems

  • Everything - including files, programs, user data - is represented as bits. Executable code is just a context that data is viewed in. The same data may represent an integer, string, float, or an executable instruction depending on the context.

  • Compilation stages:

  • How a typical system is organised

    • Buses are (electrical) conduits that typically transfer a word at a time
    • IO devices connect via an adapter (external) or a controller (on-die/on-motherboard)
    • The processor executes the instruction that PC points to in a loop
    • DMA allows data (incl. executable code) to directly travel from disk to main memory

  • Data is moving from one place to another a lot, so caching is key

    • L1 caches live on the processor die
    • L2 (and L3?) caches are connected via a bus

  • OS abstractions: processes, virtual memory, files *

    A process is the operating system’s abstraction for a running program

    • Maintaining this abstraction requires both hardware and kernel support
    • Context switches between user and kernel modes

Stopped at 1.7.3

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