Where and When

Lectures:Low 201 MWF 9:30-10:20
Section AA:   EEB 108 Th 12:30-1:20
Section AB:  Low 219 Th 1:30-2:20
 
Instructor

Jean-Loup Baer, 319 Sieg Hall, 685-1376, baer@cs
Office hours: M 2:30-3:30 F 1:30-2:30 or by appointment.

Teaching Assistant

Saurabh Sinha, 326 Sieg Hall, saurabh@cs
Office hours: TBA

Course Goals

From the programmer's point of view, ``the hardware'' is given by its architectural specification.
We will look at the general topic of computer architecture, using the MIPS R2000 as a specific
example, and its most obvious exposure to the programmer, assembly language programming.

     Note that assembly language is almost never used to write large complete programs anymore.
However,  it  is  still  used to write some machine specific code, like device drivers. Moreover,
your C++ code is turned into an assembler program by the compiler, and that is what the hardware
actually runs. Once you've seen assembly code, many mysteries about programming will suddenly
become clear.

Text

D.Patterson and J.Hennessy:
Computer Organization & Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (2nd Edition, 1998 )
 

Homework

There will be assembly language programming assignments or problem sets from the book every
week (well almost every week). You can discuss the assignments with each other but you should
do the actual work by yourselves.

Please hand in your assignments on the due date in class. Late assignments will not be accepted.
 

Grading

Homework 40%; midterm  20%; final 40%. These percentages are approximate. Intangibles may
arise. Class participation is a bonus. (Class participation is strongly encouraged. Don't be afraid
to ask questions: dumb questions do not exist. If I ask you a question and you don't know, just say so.
That's no problem. I will certainly answer some of your questions also by ``I don't know!''.)

e-mail and WWW

We will have a class mailing list and we will communicate often through e-mail. Feel free to send
Saurabh  or me questions. We will forward questions and answers to the whole class if appropriate.
We'll be using the WWW (World Wide Web) as well. Check the CSE378 home page.