Kicking off a course in computer organization and Assembly/machine language programming

For several years I have been teaching a sophomore/junior level cours e entitled Computer Organization and Programming . The objectives of the course are to introduce machine organization and teach students to progra m in assembly language . Although there are many fine text books on assembl y language programming and several good books on computer organization, I have not been able to find one that combines the two subjects so that the y are meaningful to beginning students . It has been particularly difficul t to start off the course in an interesting and challenging way without losing these students, who, for the most part, have been exposed only t o introductory high level language programming . Recently I have tried a n approach that shows signs of being successful . The heart of the approac h is the use of a simple fictitious computer to illustrate the basi c concepts . Although this approach is not completely new, I feel that th e simplicity of the computer used along with the fact that the material i s presented so early in the semester make it rather unique . In this paper I describe the machine and how it is used in the first class of the semester .