A Program of Blending Hardware/Software on Microprocessors in Education

This paper describes some philosophical points of view on microprocessors/microcomputers in education and our experience of implementing the basic idea While believing in a balanced software/ hardware curriculum, it is felt that in training high-level language programming, there is little difference between that for micro-and minicomputer. The conventional computer science program on software engineering would be sufficient for our students. Teaching on fundamental assembly language programming and small system system-programming of microprocessor and microproccessor-based systems would be essential. Emphasis is then geared to the design of bus structure, input/output, interrupt, and integration of transducers or peripherals with microprocessors. Here, the harmony integration of software and hardware technologies become the important factor. Courses and laboratories designed with this goal in mind are then presented in some detail.