CENG 103

Introduction to Computer Engineering

Part ı – Introduction and Information Representation

Prof. Dr. Semih Bilgen

Istanbul Okan University
 Contents
Introduction to computer engineering

Information representation – number systems

Boolean Algebra and Digital logic structures

Computer architecture

Little Computer 3 (LC-3)

Software and programming

Control and data structures

Input/Output (I/O)

Ethics and Computer Engineering

 Introduction to Computer Engineering
• Human mental performance (paper&pencil): Average 1 Arithmetic OP
(AOP)/sec
• Human perception performance: Less than 16 images/sec
• 1946 IBM 602 performance: 200 AOP/sec
Machine 12-Digit
Program 6-Digit 4-Digit
Model Cycles Storage Functions
Steps Counters Counters
per Minute Units
1 200 12 6 3 3 +, -, *, /
2 200 12 6 3 3 +, -, *, /
50 150 6 4 3 1 +, -, *, /
51 150 6 4 3 1 +, -, *
 Colossus computer vacuum tube supercomputer 1943:
500,000 AOP/sec

Wikipedia:

Colossus was a set of computers developed by British

codebreakers in the years 1943–1945 to help in the
secret communication systems used during WW2.

Colossus used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to

perform Boolean and counting operations.

Colossus is thus regarded as the world's first

programmable, electronic, digital computer, although it
was programmed by switches and plugs (SB: «hard
wired») and not by a stored program (SB: «software»).
Thermionic valves (vacuum tubes)
 Development of CPU performance – very briefly:

The first microprocessor, the Intel 4004 in 1971, contained 2300 transistors and operated at 106 KHz,
92,600 AOP/Sec. (0,92 MIPS)

By 1992, those numbers had jumped to 3.1 million transistors at a frequency of 66 MHz on the Intel
Pentium microprocessor, an increase in both parameters of a factor of about 1000. Pentium 1994
performance was 188 MIPS at 100 MHz

Today’s microprocessors contain more than ten billion transistors and can operate at more than 4
GHz, another increase in both parameters of about a factor of 1000.

Intel® Core™ i9-13900K (2022): 14.2 billion transistors, 4.3 GHz;

Integer Math: 211,545 MIPS (more than two hundred thousand million AOP/sec)
 What is a computer?

• A very large systematically interconnected collection of very simple parts

(e.g. 14 billion transistors, etc.)

In this course we shall become familiar with those parts and step-by-step,
understand how they are interconnected to reach today’s intelligent systems:
oInformation representation
oTransistors  Gates  information processing  Integrated circuits (chips)
 devices  computer
oProgramming
oData and control structures
oOperating systems
 Information representation
• All digital equipment operate on binary representation of information
• A bit (binary digit) can have only two values: 0/1, and is the smallest unit of
information:
Information means the choice between possible options. Unless there are at least two
options, there can be no choice, hence no information.
• With multiple bits, choices among larger sets of options are possible.
E.g. 2 bits  4 options (00, 01, 10, 11), 3 bits  8 options, etc.

The number of choices (combinations) that can be represented by n bits is 2n

The number of bits needed to represent N choices (alternatives) is log2N

 Examples
• At least how many bits are necessary for binary representation of the 29 letters of
the Turkish alphabet?

Log229 ~ 4.86 so 4 bits are not sufficient, 5 bits are needed. (24 = 16, 25 = 32)

• A 6-bit team code is used to represent all teams participating in a volleyball

tournament. What is the maximum number of teams that can participate in this
tournament?

 26 = 64, so up to 64 teams can participate.

 Redundant coding
• Assume that we need to encode the alphabet {A, B, C, D} in binary
form. The following codes, and countless others, are possible:
A B C D Note
00 01 10 11 Min size code
000 011 110 101 Even no of 1’s
100 010 001 111 Odd no of 1’s
0000 0011 1100 1111 Min size x 2
00000000 00001111 11110000 11111111 Min size x 4

• The extra bits may be used for ensuring correct communication –

many complex algorithms are available for that purpose.
 Representing numeric information
• Positional notation: Positions named as p: 0, 1, 2, etc. from right to left, each bit value multiplied
by 2p to obtain number value, i.e. Converting binary to decimal representation.
e.g. 100112 represents 1 x 20 + 1 x 21 + 0 x 22 + 0 x 23 + 1 x 24 = 1910
• This is UNSIGNED integer representation.
• To convert decimal to binary, simply keep dividing by 2 and writing the remainders starting from
position 0, going towards the left, until the quotient is 0.
e.g. Find the binary representation of 3710.
37 / 2 : q=18, r=1
18 / 2 : q=9, r=0
9 / 2 : q=4, r=1
4 / 2 : q=2, r=0
2 / 2 : q=1, r=0
1 / 1 : q=0, r=1 so, 3710 = 1001012
 Binary numeric formats
• Binary: only 0’s and 1’s
• Octal: 3-bit combinations represented by digits {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}
e.g. 0111011110002 = 35708
10011102 = 1168 (Grouping starts from the least significant bit.)

• Hexadecimal: 4-bit combinations represented by HEX digits

{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F}
e.g. 0111011110002 = 778H
11011111010110002 = DF58H
110000110010112 = 30CBH
 Representing signed integers
• Sign-Magnitude notation: Highermost order (leftmost) bit represents
sign, the rest represents magnitude.
e.g. +1210 = 011002, -1210 = 111002

• One’s Complement notation: Leftmost bit represents sign, and the

other bits are all flipped (0 1) for negative numbers
e.g. +1210 = 011002, -1210 = 100112

Neither of these notations are suitable for computational circuits, so a

more convenient notation is used for representing negative numbers:
 2’s Complement notation
• Start with the representation of the positive number
• Flip all bits
• Add 1
e.g. To represent -1910:
Start with 0100112 which represents +19
Flip all bits: 101100
Add 1: 1011012 represents -1910 in 2’sC notation.
Why is this preferred?
 2’s complement arithmetic
- 19 101101
+ 19 010011
00 (1) 000000
Arithmetic with 2’s complement numbers is straightforward – no special operation is
necessary.

• Given any binary number, to find the decimal equivalent:

If the leftmost bit is 0, the number is positive, simply multiply bit values with positional
weights ( x 2p at position p) and add.
If the leftmost bit is 1, the number is negative; flip all bits, convert to decimal, then add 1
to find the magnitude.

e.g. 101101  010010  18 + 1  19, so 1011012 = -1910

 e.g. 5 bit integer representations
Unsigned Sign-Mag 1’s Comp 2’s Comp Bit Unsigned Sign-Mag 1’s Comp 2’s Comp Bit
pattern pattern
0 +0 +0 0 00000 16 -0 -15 -16 10000

1 +1 +1 +1 00001 17 -1 -14 -15 10001

2 +2 +2 +2 00010 18 -2 -13 -14 10010

3 +3 +3 +3 00011 19 -3 -12 -13 10011

4 +4 +4 +4 00100 20 -4 -11 -12 10100

5 +5 +5 +5 00101 21 -5 -10 -11 10101

6 +6 +6 +6 00110 22 -6 -9 -10 10110

7 +7 +7 +7 00111 23 -7 -8 -9 10111

8 +8 +8 +8 01000 24 -8 -7 -8 11000

9 +9 +9 +9 01001 25 -9 -6 -7 11001

10 +10 +10 +10 01010 26 -10 -5 -6 11010

11 +11 +11 +11 01011 27 -11 -4 -5 11011

12 +12 +12 +12 01100 28 -12 -3 -4 11100

13 +13 +13 +13 01101 29 -13 -2 -3 11101

14 +14 +14 +14 01110 30 -14 -1 -2 11110

15 +15 +15 +15 01111 31 -15 -0 -1 11111

 Examples (1)
An 8-bit computer word contains 10011001. What is the decimal
equivalent if this is interpreted as:
Unsigned integer?
128 + 16 + 8 + 1 = 153
Sign-magnitude integer?
- (16 + 8 + 1) = -25
1’s complement integer?
- (64 + 32 + 4 + 2) = -102
d) 2’s complement integer?
- (64 + 32 + 4 + 2 + 1) = -103
 Examples (2)
• Show the representation of the integer -6510 in an 8-bit Word as a:
a) Sign-magnitude integer:
11000001
b) 1’s complement integer:
10111110
c) 2’s complement integer:
10111111
 Fractional numbers
e.g. 10.10112 = 1 x 21 + 0 x 20 + 1 x ½ + 0 x ¼ + 1 x 1/8 + 1 x 1/16
= 2 + 0.5 + 0.125 + 0.0625
= 2.687510
 Floating point number representation
• A floating point number is represented as:
v = s × 2e × (1+m)
• Where v is the number, s is the sign, m is the mantissa, and
s = +1 (positive numbers) when the sign bit is 0
s = −1 (negative numbers) when the sign bit is 1
e = Exponent − 127 (in other words the exponent is stored with 127 added to it, also called "biased with 127")
m = Fraction in binary form (0 ≤ m < 1), the fractional part includes an implicit 1 on the left of the binary
point.

e.g. 0.15625 can be represented as a 32bit floating point number as follows:

s = +1
e = -3 (from 124 – 127) (because 2-3 = 0.125 < 0.15625 < 0.25 = 2-2 , we must multiply the fractional part by 2-3 )
m = 0.25 (note: m=0.25 means multiply by 1.25)
So, v = +1 x 2-3 x 1.25
= +1 x 0.125 x 1.25
= 0.15625
 Decimal to 32-bit floating point conversion
• Consider a real number, e.g. 12.375
• Convert and normalize the integer part into binary (1210 = 11002)
• Convert the fraction part (0.37510 = 0 x ½ + 1 x ¼ + 1 x 1/8 = 0.0112)
• Add the two results (1100.0112)
• Adjust them to produce a proper final conversion: 
 32-bit floating point example (continued):
Since 32 bit floating point number standard (IEEE 754 binary32) requires
real values to be represented in
(1.b1b2…b23)2 x 2e format,
1100.011 is shifted to the right to become (1.100011)2 x 23 = 12.37510

The exponent is 3, so it must be stored as

(3 + 127)10 = (130)10 = 100000102

The fraction is 100011 (the «1.» is not stored)

So, (12.375)10 = (0 10000010 10001100000000000000000)2 = (41460000)H

 e.g. What is the decimal value represented by the floating point number:
0011 1110 0110 1101 0000 0000 0000 0000

Sign bit is 0, so number is positive.

e = 011111002 = 12410, so exponent of the number is 124-127 = -3

Mantissa is 1101101 (leaving out the less significant 0’s),

So, the number is:

1.1101101 x 2-3 = (1 + ½ + ¼ + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/128) x 2-3
=(1 + .5 + .25 + 0.0625 + 0.03125 + 0.0078125) / 8
= 0.23110
 Representation of alpha-numeric information

ASCII («American Standard Code for Information Interchange»): 7-bit

code to represent lower case and upper case letters of the English
alphabet, as well as all decimal digits, punctuation marks and control
characters.

Extended (8-bit) ASCII code that includes Greek letters as well as other
symbols together with all 7-bit ASCII symbols.

So the same 8-bit data may be interpreted in many different ways:
7-bit ASCII, 8-bit ASCII, unsigned, sign magnitude, 1’sC, 2’s C, …
7-bit ASCII Table
 Any 32-bit (4 Byte) data item may mean
(i.e. be interpreted/used as):
• Alphanumeric:
4 character ASCII code (7-bit ASCII or Extended 8-bit ASCII)
• Another alphanumeric code (e.g. Unicode, EBCDIC, etc)
• Numeric:
IEEE 754 binary 32 floating point number
Unsigned binary number
Sign-magnitude integer
1’sC integer
2’sC integer