Course Syllabus

EET 466: Microcomputer Architecture

Credit Hours: 3 sem hrs.

Text: The WINN Rosch Hardware Bible, Rosch, Brady, 1995

Suppl. text: Microsoft MSDOS Programmer's Reference, Microsoft Press Microsoft Windows Programmer's Reference, Microsoft Press

Software: Microsoft Office, Microsoft Macro Assembler, Microsoft Quick C

Prerequisites: EET 357, EET 358

Instructor: Prof. Amin Ismail

Date Prepared: Fall 1996

Objectives:

• To develop an understanding of the IBM PC hardware architecture
• To study the two dominant types of PC operating systems - DOS (command line interface) and Windows (Graphical User Interface)
• To understand the interactions between the hardware and the operating system.
• To study the API of the DOS and Windows operating systems using examples in Assembly Language and C
  

Topical Outline

Week 1: Introduction
A historical and futuristic perspective- Evolution of the PC in conjunction with Intel's series of microprocessors and Microsoft's operating systems.

Week 2: PC Hardware Architecture
PC Hardware- The system board, Power supply, disk drives, display, and keyboard. Study of the types of expansion Busses- Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), Industry Standard Architecture (ISA), Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA), VESA local bus architecture and PCI.

Week 3: PC Microprocessors
The Intel family of microprocessors-- the 8088, 8086, 80186, 80188, 80286, 80386SX, 80386DX, 80486, Pentium, and Pentium Pro. Internal register architecture. Memory addressing and segmentation, I/O addressing, clock speeds, instruction set, architectural differences. FPUs.

Week 4: Memory architecture
Memory management and addressing-- Segmented memory scheme, PC memory map. Differences between conventional, expanded, and extend memory. The EMS and XMS specifications. High Memory addressing. Upper Memory Blocks (UMB). Memory Managers- EMM386, HIMEM, QEMM

Week 5: Storage
Mass Storage- types of mass storage devices: disk drives (fixed and flexible), Tapes, WORMs, CD-ROMS. Disk Interfaces-- MFM, RLL, SCSI, EDSI, IDE. Disk drive performance and interleaving.

Week 6: Disk and File Structure
Disk structure and organization- partitions, boot records, sectors, tracks, cylinders. Formatting procedures (low and high level). File organization- the File Allocation Table (FAT), directory entries, logical and physical sector mapping, data storage.

Week 7: Video
The Video subsystem and PC graphics- Graphic standards: MDA, CGA, HGC, EGA, VGA, SVGA, 8514/A, and VESA. Measures of resolution, hardware interfaces, compatibility, and applications. Memory Mapped I/O architecture - Text and Graphics mode.

Week 8: I/O, Interrupts, and DMA
I/O Ports and devices-- addressing schemes, the keyboard. Printer (LPT) ports and interfacing. Serial (COM) ports and interfacing. Other I/O devices (mouse, modems, trackballs, tablets, etc). System Board I/O address map. I/O Address selection. Interrupt and DMA architecture. IRQ and DMA assignments and selection.

Week 9: PC Firmware
PC Firmware- The Power On Self Test (POST) procedure. Bootstrap operations. The ROM-BIOS: purpose, compatibility, and interface. ROM BIOS Software Interrupts

Week 10: The Operating System
The Operating System (DOS): Evolution, facilities, device drivers and TSRs. DOS services and interfacing. DOS versions. DOS Shells. Batch Processing. Directory Structure. COM, EXE, and BAT file architecture and execution sequence.

Week 11: Other PC Operating Systems
Other PC Operating Systems: OS/2, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT architectures. DOS compatibility issues. Multitasking systems. Multiuser systems. Hardware requirements.

Week 12: The Application Program Interface (API)
The DOS and Windows API architecture. Study of the Operating System from the Programmer's perspective. Accessing the operating system through DOS Software Interrupts. Accessing the operating system through the Windows API using MASM and C.

Week 13: PC Networks
PC Networks: Connectivity concepts, network concepts. Types of networks: server/client based, peer-to-peer networks. Networking hardware: Ethernet, ARCnet, Twisted pair, Token Ring.

Last Revised: September 1, 1996