This document contains class notes on Chapter 2 of a CMPS290 textbook. It covers:
- The instruction set and machine language that allows a computer's hardware to be commanded. Different computers have different instruction sets like MIPS assembly language.
- How computer instructions are encoded in binary machine code and represented in various instruction formats like R-format and I-format in MIPS.
- Core concepts for understanding the language of computers like registers, memory addressing, data types, logical and arithmetic operations, and how high-level code gets compiled to low-level machine instructions.