Technology (Read Only) > Computers

Damn this computer architecture class...

(1/1)

Travelsonic:
Or rather, the evil professor giving me an evil question for the evil final.

--- Quote ---Show the contents of registers and special bits, and explain what is happening during the multiplication of the two 32-bit floating point (1 sign, 8 exponent, 23 significant, non-biased) numbers [given on the exam].  Use the exact format as table 10-3 from the text [M. Morris Mano, Computer System Architecture]  Explain how the sign is derived.  Write the product of the multiplication as a separate answer.  Show all work.

--- End quote ---

Yeah.  I had to do two of these by hand, in a tiny blue book, and do a question where I had to explain which of the three methods for handling data dependence [hardware interlocks, oeprand forwarding, or delayed load] was the best - and I had to do it all in two hours with a calculus exam only an hour-and-a-half after I finished.

My prof. :trollface:'d the whole class.  I knew my spine was tingling for a reason when he said to not be intimidated by the length of the numbers.  >:(

EDIT:  Just for clarification, without reducing the table down to take account for multiple right shifts occuring in a row to take up less space, multiplication of 2 32 bit numbers creates a table that can become an absurd number of rows long EASILY.  Crunching lots of tiny-written binary numbers, confining yourself to the little boxes you made and being able to read your handwriting after writing even 2/3rds of that is a real pain for anybody. >_M

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