Introduction to computing systems

EECS 100 happened because Computer Science and Engineering faculty had been dissatisfied for many years with the lack of student comprehension of some very basic concepts. For example, students had a lot of trouble with pointer variables. Recursion seemed to be "magic," beyond understanding.

We decided in 1993 that the conventional wisdom of starting with a high level programming language, which was the way we (and most universities were doing it) was flawed. We decided that the reason students were not "getting it" was that they were forced to memorize technical details, when they did not understand the basic underpinnings.

The result is the bottom-up approach taken in this book. We treat (in order) MOS transistors (very briefly, long enough for students to grasp their global switch-level behavior), logic gates, latches, logic structures, (MUX, Decoder, Adder, gated latches), finally culminating in an implemention of memory. From there, we move on to the Von Neumann model of execution, then a simple computer (the LC-2), machine language programming of the LC-2, assembly language programming of the LC-2, the high level language C, recursion, elementary data structures (arrays and linked lists), and finally some basic analysis of some of the algorithms the students encounter throughout the book.

We do not; endorse today's popular "Information hiding" approach when it comes to learning. Information hiding is a useful productivity enhancement technique AFTER one understands what is going on. But until one gets to that point, we insist that "information hiding" gets in the way of understanding. Thus, we continually build on what has gone before, so, that nothing is magic, and everything can be tied to the foundation that has already been laid.