Possible Duplicate: What is the relationship between Turing Machine & Modern Computer ? I heard a lot that modern computers are based on Turing machine. I just cannot build a bridge from a conceptual Turing Machine to a real modern computer. Could someone help me build this bridge? Below is my current understanding. I thin...
This reddit thread says 6 trits ~ 9.5 bits. How is 6 trits ~ 9.5 bits? ...
Hi everyone: I'm thinking about this question for a time: when does an ARM7(with 3 pipelines) processor increase its PC register. I originally thought that after an instruction has been executed, the processor first check is there any exception in the last execution, then increase PC by 2 or 4 depending on current state. If an exceptio...
I'm trying to learn this basic thing about processors that should be taught in every CS department of every university. Yet i can't find it on the net (Google doesn't help) and i can't find it in my class materials either. Do you know any good resource on how addressing modes work on a physical level? I'm particularly interested in Inte...
Hello, I was just wondering what other CPU architectures are available other than INTEL & AMD. So, found List of CPU architectures on Wikipedia. It categorizes notable CPU architectures into following categories. Embedded CPU architectures Microcomputer CPU architectures Workstation/Server CPU architectures Mini/Mainframe CPU archite...
Hello, recently I've been reading some SO archives and encountered statements against x86 architecture. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2667256/why-do-we-need-different-cpu-architecture-for-server-mini-mainframe-mixed-cor says "PC architecture is a mess, any OS developer would tell you that." http://stackoverflow.com/qu...
First some background (based on my understanding).. The Von-Neumann architecture describes the stored-program computer where instructions and data are stored in memory and the machine works by changing it's internal state, i.e an instruction operates on some data and modifies the data. So inherently, there is state maintained in the sys...
I was trying to figure out how much memory I can malloc to maximum extent on my machine (1 Gb RAM 160 Gb HD Windows platform). I read that maximum memory malloc can allocate is limited to physical memory.(on heap) Also when a program exceeds consumption of memory to a certain level, the computer stops working because other applications ...
Hello, I know about Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manuals. I also know that these cover all the legacy & old processor ISAs. But I want the individual manual (the one that released along with the processor) for each of the processors. I managed to find the 80386 manual EDIT: I'm starting bounty. ...
Taking Peter Norvig's advice, I am pondering on the question: How much time does it take to fetch one word from memory, with and without a cache miss? (Assume standard hardware and architecture. To simplify calculations assume 1Ghz clock) ...
Dear Pundits, I have basic doubt regarding executable stored in ROM. As I know the executable with text and RO attributes is stored in ROM. Question is as ROM is for Read Only Memory, what happens if there is situation where the code needs to write into memory? I am not able to conjure up any example to cite here (probably I am ignor...
Let a, b be two integers with n digits. I am wondering does the computing time of the square of a is shorter than a*b. Thank you for your help. ...
Yesterday, while I was pondering over Why can’t OS use entire 64-bits for addressing? I found another interesting thing. Lets take Intel Core 2 Duo Processor for example. From "4.2 Alphabetical Signals Reference" of Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E8000 and E7000 Series - Datasheet I came to know that it has 36 address lines & 64 data lines....
Hey everyone, I've been trying to figure out what computer field I want to go into later on in life. College is just around the corner for me and I've considered looking into Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, etc. Lately, I've been looking into computer security systems and exploitations of such (purely for educational purpos...
Edit - I guess the question I asked was too long so I'm making it very specific. Question: If a memory location is in the L1 cache and not marked dirty. Suppose it has a value X. What happens if you try to write X to the same location? Is there any CPU that would see that such a write is redundant and skip it? For example is there an o...
First, I just returned from DEFCON 18 and I am completely inspired to learn more about hardware. For example, how do I add LEDs to the badge? (http://www.grandideastudio.com/portfolio/defcon-18-badge/) How do I learn how to read the schematic and understand what I can do with it? I checked out some computer engineering books on Amazon,...
What do we mean by the pointer based array access in MIPS? ...
What is the meaning of : Array1 : .word 0:20 ...
what does the instruction clear $t0 perform in MIPS?I mean what is the actual MIPS instruction for this pseudo-instruction? ...
Registers are the fastest memories in a computer. So if we want to build a computer with just registers and not even caches is it possible? I think of even replacing the magnetic discs with registers although they are naturally volatile memories. Do we have some nonvolatile registers for that use? It would become so fast! I'm just wonder...