2.1: Introduction

When programming in C, it helps if you know at least a little about the internal workings of simple computer systems. As C tends to be “close to the metal”, the way in which certain things are performed as well preferred coding techniques will be more apparent.

First off, let’s narrow the field a bit by declaring that we will only investigate a fairly simple system, the sort of thing one might see in an embedded application. That means a basic processor and solid state memory. We won’t worry about disk drives, monitors, and so forth. Specific details concerning controller architecture, memory hardware and internal IO circuitry are covered in later chapters.

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