Hacking the Metal 2: Hardware and the Evolution of C Creatures

Presented at DEF CON 30 (2022), Aug. 12, 2022, 2 p.m. (240 minutes)

Beneath the surface of your favorite video game, operating system, or mobile app hides a subterranean world of low-level programming and hardware architecture that was once the domain of all programmers, but now lives mostly hidden behind dazzling graphics and modern abstractions. Diving into this world, we will delve into the design of processors using a hardware description language, tour through a handful of assembly language programs, and then plunge into systems programming in C, with comparison and contrast to the underlying assembly language that the compiler generates. Along the way, we will build programs both entertaining and mischievous, and emerge with a deeper understanding of the secrets behind all modern digital computing. Materials: Laptop Prereq: Some coding experience is helpful but not mandatory

Presenters:

  • Eigentourist - Programmer
    Eigentourist is a programmer who learned the craft in the early 1980s. He began formal education in computer science when the height of software engineering discipline meant avoiding the use of GOTO statements. Over the course of his career, he has created code of beautiful simplicity and elegance, and of horrific complexity and unpredictability. Sometimes it's hard to tell which was which. Today, he works on systems integration and engineering in the healthcare industry.

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