FE Electrical "Computer Systems" (Material Not in FE Supplied Reference Handbook)

[CaptainKip]

How come the FE Supplied Reference Handbook (8th edition, 2nd revision) does not have a "Computer Systems" portion, even though it's 10% of the electrical afternoon exam?

Here's the excerpt from page 10:

IX. Computer Systems 10%
A. Architecture (e.g., pipelining, cache memory)
B. Interfacing
C. Microprocessors
D. Memory technology and systems
E. Software design methods (structured, top-down bottom-up, object-oriented design)
F. Software implementation (structured programming, algorithms, data structures)

I searched through the handbook from cover-to-cover, but the handbook does not contain any information about these topics.

For example, take "C. Microprocessors". Are we talking interrupts, assembly language programming, I/O...? Why is this information nowhere in the handbook?

Am I missing something? Any thoughts?

 

[Wildsoldier PE]

not all info is included in the hand book....some basic stuff are expected that the candidate should know by memory.

 

[CaptainKip]

not all info is included in the hand book....some basic stuff are expected that the candidate should know by memory.

Wildsoldier--

I totally understand and appreciate your quick reply; however, there doesn't appear to be any clear indication of what type of scale the authors use to define "basic stuff" which candidates "should know by memory".

For example, this handbook shows the quadratic equation on page 21--a formula I learned in elementary school. Yet, this book does not provide any clue of what chapters from my 828 page textbook from my μP class I should study for the FE. We're not talking about a sub-topic or two here--the ENTIRE "Computer System" section is missing from the Reference Handbook.

I was just wondering if there has been any guidance (official or unofficial) made public on this matter. I've been searching online for a while now, and I can't seem to find anything.

 

[Wildsoldier PE]

Well...sometimes you are on your own

 

[John QPE]

I am not familiar with this discipline, but is it perhaps somewhere else?

That book is not the most user friendly, and a lot of stuff pops up in some unlikely spots.

Of course, they have the caveat that not all questions are limited to what is in the reference manual.