8
for class on
Wednesday
Oct. 10, 2012
Please read sections 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, and the first few pages of 4.4 of the Patterson & Hennessy text.
Please turn in written responses to these questions:
1. What changes (if any) to the datapath (the black lines) of Figure 4.11 would you need to enable it to execute the MIPS jr (jump register) instruction? Mark your changes on a copy of the Figure. Include a short short explanation.
2. What (if any) changes to the control (the blue wires) of Figure 4.11 would you need to enable it to execute the MIPS jr instruction? You may mark your changes on the same copy. Again, include just the tiniest explanation.
Then, be prepared to discuss the following in class:
3. We will put together a simple MIPS processor datapath (somewhat like the EDSAC datapath of the very first class) and then run some instructions through it to see how it really works. Please think about how the different instruction types--arithmetic, loads, stores, branches--use different parts of the datapath, and how these quite different instructions use the datapath in very similar ways.
4. What about floating-point? Floating-point instructions come out of the instruction memory like any other instructions--where should the floating-point hardware be, and how should it be hooked up with the integer datapath? How would a floating-point load instruction work?