• Problem #1
  (40 points)

  Solve exercises 2.1 and 2.2 from the textbook (Hennesy and Patterson, "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach", 2nd Edition).

• Problem #2
  (30 points)

  Solve exercise 3.3 from the textbook (Hennesy and Patterson, "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach", 2nd Edition).

• Problem #3
  (30 points)

  In this problem we will get acquainted with two software tools designed to experiment with the DLX architecture: the dlxgcc (a GNU C compiler for the DLX architecture) and the dlxsim (a simulator for the DLX architecture). The software we will be using is installed under the directory /home/course/cs550/dlx/bin.

  • The function fact() shown below is a recursive program to compute the Factorial of an integer n.

    
    int fact(n)                              void main()
      int n ;                                {
    {                                          int i, j ;
      if (n <= 1)                                i = 4 ;
        return(1) ;                              j = fact(i) ;
      else                                   }
        return(n*fact(n-1)) ;                
    }
    
    

  • Type in the above program and compile it using dlxgcc. To do so, invoke dlxgcc with the name of the file where your factorial program resides as a parameter. In the absence of any errors, dlxgcc will produce a DLX assembly language program (with a ``.s'' extension) in the same directory where the source (C) code resides. Show a listing of the compiled code (produced by dlxgcc).
  • Identify the function of each section of the compiled code (e.g. initializations, function call sequence, function return sequence, ... etc.) Also, identify the assembly code segments for each one of the instructions in the program.
  • Show a memory map (basically the stack and the activation record) for each invocation of fact().
  • Run the compiled program using dlxsim. Refer to the document explaining the use of dlxsim for a full description of the capabilities of the simulator. Compare the dynamic instruction mix (you can obtain that using the stat command) of the above program with the instruction mixes for the benchmarks we discussed in class. Comment.

  References

  • DLX Simulator Technical Report
  • DLX Simulator Manual Pages

Maintainer: Azer Bestavros
Created on: 1997.02.18
Updated on: 1997.02.18

Copyright © 1997. All rights reserved.