CSE 306 Processing Systems and Structures
Lecture 1
J. W. Lockwood

Course Goals

Hardware
Design
This Course:
The processing systems and structures between
Software
Programming
Digital logic and
Finite State Machines (FSMs)
Machine-level operations,
Computer organization
and data movement
High-level
languages
(C++ or Java)

Course Overview


Todays Topics


A very short history and historical perspective

YearEvent
1642 Blaise Pascal invents mechanical calculator (counting device)
1830 Charles's Babbages "Difference Engine"

First Steam-powered "Analytical Engine"
1880's John H. Patterson's Mechanical cash register (NCR)

First applications for computing devices
1930's Claude Shannon:
  • Suggests use of Binary system for use with electronic circuits
1940s John Von Neumann
  • Proposes reconfigurable computing by storing programs in memory
1940s - 1950s
  • First electronic computers

    • Vacuum tubes & mechanical relays: UNIVAC, ENIAC
    • 30 tons
    • 150KWatt
    • 80 bytes of memory

  • ILLIAC (Metze et. al. play Illinois fight song on accumulator bit. - first computer music)
1948 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Schockley file patent on invention of the transistor
1958
Jack Kilby
  • introduces concept of "Integrated Circuit"
1960s Computers begin to use transistors.
1965Gordon Moore
  • Observes that every chip produced contained roughly twice as much capacity as its predecessor and that chips new generations of chips were being released every 18-24 months.
Late 1960s IBM mainframes
  • Powerful, centralized CPUs with terminals
  • Age of the "big iron"
1970s DEC PDP-11s
  • Low-cost Mini-computers
  • Age of the "Vaxen"
1974 Microprocessors
  • Intel introduces the 8080 (a "toy")
  • Bill Gates sophmore year at Harvard
1974
  • Altair 8800:

    • 8080 CPU
    • Affordable ($379 kit)
    • No screen (LEDs on front panel)
    • No keyboard (DIP switches on front panel)
    • No storage
    • 4k memory.

  • Bill Gates & Paul Allen start writing BASIC
1977
  • Radio Shack TRS-80

  • Apple II

  • Commodore-64
1980 IBM meets with Bill Gates to license BASIC/MSDOS (QDOS)
1981 IBM Personal Computer:
  • 16-bit microprocessor: 4.77 MHz 8088
  • ROM BASIC,
  • cassette interface,
  • 360k floppy (optional)
  • DOS 1.0
1982 Illiac-IV
  • decommissioned
1983
  • Low cost computing
    • 10 MByte Hard disk costs $3000
    • 640KB of Memory costs $1000

  • Compaq introduces "Portable Computing"

1984
  • Macintosh: GUI based on work at Xerox Parc

  • IBM Introduces PC-AT: 80286-based system.
  • Record year for IBM.

  • Lockwood buys first 8088 computer.
1985 First 32-bit 80x86 CPUs
  • Intel introduces 80386
  • Address up to 4 Gbytes of memory.
1986 First 32-bit 80x86 Systems
  • Compaq introduces first 80386-based system
1989 Intel introduces 80486, includes math co-processor (FPU)
1992
  • AMD/Cyrix 486 (Compatible CPUs)
  • Intel Pentium: 32-bit processor with 64-bit memory bus
1995
  • AMD / Cyrix: 5x86
  • Transmeta formed
  • 1 Gigabyte hard drive costs $300 (1000 times cheaper/MB than 1983 !)
1996
  • Use of Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) core to exectute 80x86 instructions
    • AMD K5 (RISC Ops = ROPS)
    • Intel Pentium Pro
  • Superscalar Execution
    • AMD K5/K6
    • Cyrix M1 (6x86)
    • Intel Pentium Pro

  • Powerful, Entry-level systems
    • 100 MIP CPUs
    • 32M DRAM
    • 12x CDROM

1997
  • Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD):
    Multimedia Extensions / Matrix Math Extensions (MMX)
    • AMD K6,
    • Intel Pentium-II
    • Cyrix/IBM M2 (6x86 MX)

  • Low-Cost computing:
    • 233 Mhz CPU w/MMX: $300
    • 64MB of Memory: $300 (300 times cheaper/MB than 1983 !)
1998
  • Portable computing: 5-9 lbs (2-4 kgs)

  • Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) for Floating Point operations
    • AMD K6-2 w/3DNow

  • Integrated CPU/Video/Audio:
    • Cyrix/NSM MediaGX

  • Low-Cost computing:
    • 300 MHz CPU w/MMX+3D: $125
    • 64 MB of Memory (PC-100 SDRAM): $75
    • 10 GByte Hard Drive: $200
1999
  • More Floating point Parallelism
    • Pentium III (Katmai)

  • Faster Bus Architectures
    • AMD K3-III (3DNow + 256k on-chip Full-speed L2 cache)
    • AMD Athlon: High performance x86-compatible processor

2000
  • Intel introduces Pentium 4

  • Transmeta releases Crusoe: A very Low-power, x86-compatible processor
    (4-6 Watt power budget at 500 MHz)


  • Small laptops weigh 2-3 lbs (1 kgs), have battery life up to 5 hours.
2001
  • RAMBUS mostly abandoned for DDR Memory

  • AMD Athlon MP: Multi-processor enabled x86-compatible processor

2002
  • AMD ``Hammer'' extends x86 instruction set with 64-bit instructions

  • Ubiquitous Computing

2003
  • 512 MByte of memory (PC133 SDRAM) costs $40
    (15x cheaper/MByte than in 1998)

  • 100 GByte of disk costs $100
    (20x cheaper/Gbyte than in 1998)


  • Palm Tungsten C: Weight: 6 oz (with batteries and Wi-Fi radio)
2004
  • Extensible Networks
    Processing distributed throughout the network

Rapid Changes


Review from previous classes

Review of Number Systems

Addition Operation

Base conversion

Signed and Unsigned Numbers

Copyright 1996-2003 John Lockwood