Material covered before midterm

Sections and pages: C-1 to C-12, C-26 to C-31, C.7, C.8, C-58 to C-62, 4.1,
  2.1-2.14, B.1, B.5, B.9, 2.15-15 thru 2.15-18 on CD_ROM, 2.17,
  files on class web site

Topics

Appendix C material + 4.1:
bits, gates, primary and secondary memory, datapath, buses, ALU
FETCH, DECODE, EXECUTE, WRITEBACK cycle (sometimes just called the
  FETCH-EXECUTE cycle)                _
Boolean logic, Boolean algebra (+, *,  , sum of products form, laws), gate
  implementation, multiplexor decoders
ALU, adder (with carry), clocks, latches and flip-flops, registers, RAM,
  tri-state, Program Counter, overall architecture, (Fig. 4.2)

2.1-2.14, B.1, B.5, B.9:
MIPS instruction set, RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer), CISC (Complex
  Instruction Set Computer)
the 32 registers, arithmetic instructions, logical and shift instructions,
  data transfer instructions, conditional jump (branching) instructions,
  unconditional jump instructions
add, sub, addi, lw, sw, addiu
positional number systems, decimal, binary, octal, hexadecimal, conversion
  between these representations
big-endian, little-endian
two's complement, how negative numbers are represented, changing sign of an
  integer, sign extension
arrays of words or bytes, base address, offset
instruction formats (R, I, J), sll, srl, sllv, srlv, and, or, nor, andi, ori,
  j, jr, beq, bne, slt, sltu, slti, sltiu, other branching instructions
  including pseudoinstructions, directives such as .asciiz, .word, .space
implementing loops, jump tables, 
procedure calls, use of jal and jr and $ra, how memory is divided into reserved,
  text, static data regions, and the dynamic region containing dynamic data and
  the stack
pushing data onto the stack, accessing data in the stack, popping the stack
protocol and conventions governing procedures, recursive functions
iterative implementations, recursive implementations
frame pointers (don't use unless you are changing the stack a lot in the
  middle of a procedure)
procedure frame or activation record
ASCII code, strings and their representation
addressing modes (immediate, register, base or displacement, PC-relative,
  pseudodirect as in jal and j)
synchronization, locks, ll and sc instructions in MIPS, atomic actions such as
  atomic swap and critical sections of code
compilers, assemblers, linkers, loaders, object code modules and their format,
  executable code files
dynamic linked libraries, how programs that use them modify their own links
  at run time
using arrays vs using pointers

2.15 (4 pages on CD_ROM)
Java byte code

2.17
x86 architecture