CSE 410 Syllabus
Autumn 1999

Course Description

Here's the course description from the departmental course catalog:

Structure and components of hardware and software systems. Machine organization, including central processor and input-output architectures; assembly language programming; operating systems, including process, storage, and file management. No credit to students who have completed 378 or 451.
In essence, the idea of this course is to teach you how computers really work, from the chip level up to the application. That's a big topic for a ten-week term, but we'll do our best.

Textbooks

There are two textbooks for the course. The first book is Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, Second Edition, by David Patterson and John Hennessy. You can buy it new or used at the University Bookstore, or you can try one of these services like e-compare to try to find the best deal.

The second book, which you won't need for the first few weeks of the course, is Operating Systems Concepts, Fifth Edition by Abraham Silberschatz and Peter Galvin. When I last checked, the bookstore didn't have any used copies of this, but there were plenty of new.

There are online resources for the Hennessy and Patterson text on the Morgan Kaufmann site.

Homework Policies

There will be one homework assignment per week, due every Monday in class, except November first, when you get a break because of the midterm. On each homework, there's reading, problems to do on your own, and problems to turn in. Solutions to all of the problems will be provided. You should study these, because they may turn up again on the midterm or the final.

You may discuss the homework problems with your classmates on a high level but you must write up the solutions yourself and you should completely understand everything you write down.

Homeworks are due in class on Mondays. If you have a very good excuse for missing class and you still want to turn in the homework, you can plead your case by email. Otherwise, no late work, because I want to post the solutions quickly so that you can review them while the problems are still fresh in your mind.

Grading

Here's how your grade will be computed:

You may ask for statistics about your grades at any time and I'll let you know how you're doing.