CSE 410 Computer Systems - Course Information and Syllabus - Spring 2009

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Logistics and Contact Information: Instructor: Hal Perkins, CSE 548, perkins(at)cs. See www.cs.washington.edu/410/ for information about teaching assistants, office hours, etc.

Communications: A discussion list is linked to the course home page so we can keep in touch outside of class meetings. Please participate. You will also automatically be subscribed to a class mailing list at your uwnetid address. This will primarily be used for announcements, clarifications, hints, and other notices from the course staff, and you are responsible for everything that is mailed there.

Goals: Successful course participants will:

• Understand basic machine organization, including processors, instruction sets, assembly-language programming, pipelining, memory, and input/output architecture.
• Understand the basics of the memory hierarchy, including virtual memory and caches, and how these are implemented in hardware and software.
• Understand the core concepts of operating systems, including processes, threads, synchronization, virtual memory policies, and file management.

The idea of the course is to learn how computers really work, from the chip level up to the application level. When we finish, you will understand what is actually happening when a computer system is running a set of programs, and will be able to make informed choices as a developer, project manager, or system customer.

Prerequisite: CSE 373 (data structures and algorithms)

Grading and Exams:

• 50% - Homework assignments, approximately weekly
• 20% - Midterm exam, tentatively Friday, May 1, in class
• 25% - Final exam, Tuesday, June 9, 2:30-4:20
• 5% - Class participation, citizenship, and other

In general, all homeworks contribute equally to the 50%, but larger programming projects may be weighted slightly more that other assignments. Percentages are tentative and may be adjusted slightly.

Late Policy: Deadlines will be given in each assignment. These deadlines are strict. Therefore, it is exceedingly unlikely that skipping class or being late to class because of homework is in your interest. For the entire quarter, you may have four "late days". You are strongly advised to save them for emergencies. You may not use more than two for the same assignment, and on group projects you may only use late days if all members of the group have them available, and all members of the group will be charged for each late day used. They must be used in 24-hour (integer) chunks. This policy may not be the same as in other classes. You are responsible for understanding it if you choose to submit late work.

Academic Integrity: Any attempt to misrepresent the work you did will be dealt with via the appropriate University mechanisms, and your instructor will make every attempt to ensure the harshest allowable penalty. The guidelines for this course and more information about academic integrity are in a separate document. You are responsible for knowing the information in that document.

Text: There are two books listed for the course.

• Computer Organization and Design, Patterson and Hennssy, 4th ed, Morgan Kauffman, 2009.
• Operating System Concepts, Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne, 8th ed, Wiley, 2009.

It is possible to use older editions of these books; in particular there are few substantial changes in the most recent of the Silberschatz, et al. book. Readings and problems will be assigned from the most recent editions, but we will attempt to correlate those with the immediately previous editions when possible.

	Computer Science & Engineering University of Washington Box 352350 Seattle, WA  98195-2350 (206) 543-1695 voice, (206) 543-2969 FAX [comments to Hal Perkins]