What you'll learn
Architecture of the first computer ever made
Computer design
Hardware design
Cpu design
Refresh memory
8259 interrupt controller
Bios
8237 dma controller
8253 timer chip
8255 peripheral chip
Timing in computers
Requirements
Topics like registers, address bus, data bus. In general students should know concepts like memory and processor, even though we try to explain everything, but since this is an advanced course, having some knowledge about computers would help.
Description
IBM PC 5150 is arguably the first personal computer and was made in 1981, from then on almost any computer that you see is an improvement of that first computer.But there has never been any course or book analyzing maybe the most important computer of all time, there has been a lot of courses talking about "how to create a computer", which I, myself, have created a course called "creating a cpu using transistors and logic gates", in which we created a computer from scratch. The reason for this, is because IBM PC 5150 (or any other REAL-WORLD computers- meaning computers that have been created by companies and have been sold in the world- is much more complicated than a computer that you could create on your own, in your garage or using software. When we look at the motherboard of IBM PC 5150 we see so many chips that feels so complicated, and the reality of it, is that it is really complicated, in fact if it was easy everyone would have known that. What we have done in this course, is that we completely drawn all the motherboard wire by wire and bit by bit, every 0 or 1 on that motherboard has a reason and we leave nothing to chance. We take nothing for granted. But the question is:why should we take this course?By understanding the architecture of IBM PC 5150, we will be able to understand the BIOS code written in one of the ROMs on the motherboard, this BIOS is somehow the first operating system, the first program. Then we will rise through a path which would lead us to understanding the following in the most intuitive way which is by studying the source code:BIOSDOS operating systemAssemblerCompiler80286 and 80386 processorsUnderstanding the first linux by reading its source codeRemember the best way to undestand anything is to study the source code, and to understand the soure code we need to learn the underlying hardware down to the most detailed and lowest level possible and thats what we have done in this course.
Who this course is for
Computer designer
Programmer wanting to understand programming more deeply
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