[Coursera] The Hardware/Software Interface

Examines key computational abstraction levels below modern high-level languages. From Java/C to assembly programming, to basic processor and system organization. This course examines key computational abstraction levels below modern high-level languages; number representation, assembly language, introduction to C, memory management, the operating-system process model, high-level machine architecture including the memory hierarchy, and how high-level languages are implemented. We will develop students’ sense of “what really happens” when software runs — and that this question can be answered at several levels of abstraction, including the hardware architecture level, the assembly level, the C programming level and the Java programming level. The core around which the course is built is C, assembly, and low-level data representation, but this is connected to higher levels (roughly how basic Java could be implemented), lower levels (the general structure of a processor and the mem

本课程深入探讨现代高级语言之下的关键计算抽象层级。从Java/C语言至汇编编程，再到基本处理器与系统组织结构。课程旨在审视现代高级语言之下的核心计算抽象层级，包括数字表示、汇编语言、C语言基础、内存管理、操作系统进程模型、高级机器架构（包括内存层次结构），以及高级语言是如何实现的。我们将培养学生的对‘软件运行时究竟发生了什么’的感知——这一问题的答案可以在多个抽象层次上得到解答，包括硬件架构层、汇编层、C语言编程层以及Java编程层。课程的核心围绕C语言、汇编语言和底层数据表示构建，同时与更高层次（大致如何实现基本Java）和更低层次（处理器的一般结构和内存结构）相连接。