To get the most out of this book

Each chapter in this book includes a set of exercises at the end. To get the most from the book, and to cement some of the more challenging concepts in your mind, I recommend you try to work through each exercise. Complete solutions to all exercises are provided in the book and are available online at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Modern-Computer-Architecture-and-Organization-Second-Edition.

In case there is a need to update the code examples and answers to the exercises, updates will appear at this GitHub repository.

Download the example code files

The code bundle for the book is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Modern-Computer-Architecture-and-Organization-Second-Edition. We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781803234519_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in the text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “Subtraction using the SBC instruction tends to be a bit more confusing to novice 6502 assembly language programmers.”

A block of code is set as follows:

; Add four bytes together using immediate addressing mode
LDA #$04
CLC
ADC #$03
ADC #$02
ADC #$01

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

C:\>bcdedit
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, also appear in the text like this. For example: “Because there are now four sets, the Set field in the physical address reduces to two bits and the Tag field increases to 24 bits.”

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.