Prepare for this course over the Summer.



Step 1 - setup email

Log in to the Odin server.
Edit your sample.forward file.
List the email accounts you want to communicate with.
Save it as .forward

Here is a sample...

# Exim filter - do not edit this line!
# only works for exim... others will treat it as a plain .forward file...

# if this filter generates an error, then deliver to original address
if error_message then finish endif

# If you want to forward your email to an offsite address, uncomment and modify
# the following line to use your own email address:
deliver myaddress@gmail.com

finish





Step 2 - build directories

Log in to Odin.
Go to your home directory.
Run the following script...

   /home/fac/gordon/p/2240/build_dirs.sh




Step 3 - submit a text file

Change to your 2240/summer/ directory.
Create a text file named: summer1.txt
Put your name at the top.
Answer the following questions...

   1. How many bits are in a byte of memory/storage?

   2. What is the largest value that can be stored in a byte?

   3. How many different values can be stored in a byte?

   4. How many bits are in the x86 AX register?

   5. How many bits are in the MIPS $a0 register?





some notes are below...


Notes:
To answer the questions above, you may use any sources available to you, except
just a few.

   You may use: Google and online sources, textbooks, your notes, etc.

   Please do not use: another student or another student's work.

Thanks.

How to answer a question that asks for a number.

Many questions on homework, quizzes, and exams will ask you for a number.
The answer will always be a decimal number, unless specified otherwise.

Number notation...

   decimal:     163
   binary:      10100011b
   hexidacimal: 0xa3
   octal:       0243

These are not numbers, but rather formula or expressions...

   2^7
   256/2
   n(n-1)/2

Reduce your answers to a decimal number.

What is a register?

A register is circuitry inside a CPU (central processing unit) that stores a
value. It's similar to computer memory that stores values for C++ variables and
arrays, but a register is right at the core of the CPU.

A register will hold a value for a micro-second, where memory might hold a value
for hours or days.

The size of a register is usually expressed in bits.

A 16-bit register has this many bits: 0000000000000000

The largest value that a 16-bit register can hold is:
    1111111111111111b or 65,535.

Because zero is a value, a 16-bit register can hold 65,536 different values.

Registers are used to address memory,
so a 16-bit register can address 65,536 bytes of memory.



More details about registers:

In the early 1980s, the Commodore-64 personal computer had 16-bit CPU registers,
and so could address 65,536 bytes of memory. The 64 is for 64K bytes of
memory. 64K = 1,024 * 64 = 65,536.  

Current computers have 64-bit CPU registers. If you have an older PC at home,
it might still have 32-bit CPU registers.

32-bit computers have a 4-gigabyte memory limit. Here's why:

    11111111111111111111111111111111b = 4,294,967,295

    The largest register value is about 4-billion.
    Gigabytes is billions of bytes.
    The CPU can only address 4-billion bytes of memory.


MIPS assembly language:

About half of this course is learning to program MIPS assembly language.
We will be using a MIPS emulator to run our programs.
MIPS registers have a size of 32-bits in our emulator.