Integrating Hardware Experiences into a Computer Architecture Core Course

A core curriculum computer architecture course is designed with a significant hardware component. The course builds upon prior student coursework in logic design and organization, revisiting some of this material from a fresh perspective as it builds toward simulation-based presentation of central architecture topics. The course introduces an inexpensive, take-home lab kit, which students use for project work on their own PC. The lab kit supports introductory, hardware-based activities in digital logic and microprocessor programming. The goal of the work is to provide students with accessible, hands-on learning experiences as a component of a traditional computer architecture course, while not requiring the space, equipment, and personnel resources of a dedicated hardware laboratory. This paper presents the design of the course, including both hardware and simulation-based assignments, and observations after 4 iterations of the course.