Introduction to Microprocessor

A microprocessor systems course is commonly viewed as an essential component of computer engineering programs, as well as many electrical engineering programs. Such a course is often a student's first real initiation into a ``systems'' type course, where emphasis is not on analysis and formulas, but on understanding the design and operation of a real system at many levels of abstraction. The style and format of such a course represents a challenge for instructors.
The purpose of these lectures is to relate our views on this type of course, to describe how we offer the course at our institution, and to assess the effectiveness of our course. Key aspects of our approach include:
• Integration of hardware/software topics.
• Microcomputer concepts in a manner tailored to our course and laboratory hardware,
• Use of microcomputer hardware to motivate student learning,
• A fully-featured analysis of the microcomputer hardware that allows more detailed exploration of operations,
• The use of sophisticated digital systems to aid understanding of signal timing, relative time scales, and software/hardware interaction.