Digital Logic and Computer Organization

This introductory text on 'digital logic and computer organization' presents a logical treatment of all the fundamental concepts necessary to understand the organization and design of a computer. It is designed to cover the requirements of a first-course in computer organization for undergraduate Computer Science, Electronics, or MCA students. Beginning from first principles, the text guides students through to a stage where they are able to design and build a small computer with available IC chips. Starting with the foundation material on data representation, computer arithmetic and combinatorial and sequential circuit design, the text explains ALU design and includes a discussion on an ALU IC chip. It also discusses Algorithmic State Machine and its representation using a Hardware Description Language before shifting to computer organization. The evolutionary development of a small hypothetical computer is described illustrating hardware-software trade-off in computer organization. Its instruction set is designed giving reasons why each new instruction is introduced. This is followed by a description of the general features of a CPU, organization of main memory and I/O systems. The book concludes with a chapter describing the features of a real computer, namely the Intel Pentium. An appendix describes a number of laboratory experiments which can be put together by students, culminating in the design of a toy computer.