CSE 410 – Computer Systems
Syllabus
Course Goals
Detailed understanding of
Structure and components of hardware and software systems. Machine organization, including central processor and input-output architectures; memory systems and caches, pipelining, assembly language programming.
Operating systems, including processes, threads, synchronization, virtual memory, and file management.
The idea of this course is to teach you how computers really work, from the chip level up to the user application. The major goal is that when we finish, you will understand what is actually happening when a computer system is running a set of application programs, and so will be able to make good design choices in the future as a developer, project manager, or system customer.
Instructor
Hank Levy, levy@cs.washington.edu
TAs
Charles Giefer (cgiefer@cs.washington.edu)
Scott Schremmer (scotths@cs.washington.edu)
Prerequisites
CSE 373 (data structures and algorithms)
Catalog and Time Schedule
UW Catalog entry and the UW Time Schedule entry for CSE 410.
Course Format
The class meets three times a week for lectures. On your own time, you will have homework to do, including computer programs to design and debug. You will be working on homework more or less all the time, with frequent, inflexible deadlines. You will need to use the Internet to get and turn in assignments and to keep in touch with the course.
Textbooks
There are two textbooks for the course.
The first book is Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Second Edition, by Patterson and Hennessy.
The second book, which you won't need for the first few weeks of the course, is Operating System Concepts, 7th Edition, by Silberschatz and Galvin.
I don’t really care what edition of the books you have, however, when I assign homework problems from the book, you will need to make sure that you do the right problem.
There will be a midterm and a final exam (essentially a second midterm).
Midterm I: Friday, April 29th (subject to change)
Final exam: Wednesday, June 8, 8:30 – 10:30
Grades will be assigned roughly as follows:
Homeworks: 30%
Midterm: 30%
Final: 40%
Late Policy: Homeworks due by the end of the day that they’re due. No late homeworks.
Cheating vs. Collaboration: Let me just state up front that this is an unresolvable issue. Collaboration, as an aid to learning, is highly encouraged. Cheating is just as highly discouraged. Any cheating discovered will be brought to the college.