CS 24: Introduction to Computer Systems

Instructor: Joe Vanderwaart

TAs: Keegan McAllister (keegan) and Sami Zerrade (szerrade at g mail)
Lab Hours: Tuesdays 8-10 p.m., Wednesdays 9-11 p.m.

Announcements

• Fri 9 May Monday's lecture is canceled, with apologies for the short notice.
Wed 7 May The midterm exam is available. Take it in the 24-hour period of your choice finishing no later than 10:30 a.m. next Wednesday, May 14. You may read the instructions on the first page only before starting your 24 hours.
[pdf] [midterm-code.tgz]
• Sun 4 May Lab 5 is postponed until after the midterm. The midterm exam will be made available this Wednesday evening; you will have until one week later to do it; you must finish no more than 24 hours after you start.
• Tue 29 Apr Some notes on lab 4 have been posted and will be updated with the most frequently asked questions from office hours.
• Fri 25 Apr All of lab 4 is now available. It is due one week from yesterday at the usual time.
• Fri 25 Apr Part 1 of Lab 4 is done. I'll have Part 2 ready by the end of Friday, but just in case anyone wants to start before then, I'm posting Part 1 now.
• Fri 18 Apr Lab 3 is available, due one week from yesterday. To make up for the delay in getting it ready, it has only a VM24 part and no IA-32 part.
• Tue 15 Apr If you are getting error messages about -lgc or libgc, it is because you did not set up your environment for working on VM24 by typing ". /cs/courses/cs24/cs24-setup.sh" before trying to compile or run. See slide 39 of lecture 4.
• Mon 14 Apr Your TAs have written a short tutorial on GDB, the GNU debugger. In addition, they will give a mini-lecture on GDB in the lab on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m.
  GDB is a powerful tool that can save you a lot of trouble debugging both C and assembly programs, and you are strongly encouraged to take this opportunity to learn how to use it.
• Wed 9 Apr
  • Dr. Vanderwaart's office hours are canceled for tomorrow, Thursday 10 April.
  • Lab 2 is available, due in one week.
• Fri 4 Apr Dr. Vanderwaart's office hours are on his home page.
• Wed 2 Apr Lab 1 is now available and is due at 4 a.m. next Thursday, April 10. Scroll down to find it, and to read the collaboration policy.
• Mon 31 Mar Welcome!

Schedule, Lectures & Readings

Assignments

Unless specified otherwise, all labs are due at 4 a.m. on a Thursday.

• Lab 1: Due Thursday, April 10. [pdf] [lab1.tgz]
• Lab 2: Due Thursday, April 17. [pdf] [lab2.tgz]
• Lab 3: Due Thursday, April 24. [pdf] [lab3.tgz]
• Lab 4: Due Thursday, May 1. [pdf] [lab4.tgz] [lab4.1.tgz] [lab4.2.tgz] [notes]

Links

Assembly Programming

• Intel IA-32 Software Developer's Manuals
• GNU Debugger (gdb) tutorial from your TAs, with links to further information.

VM24

• The VM24 Virtual Machine Specification (current draft) [pdf]

Collaboration Policy

Unlimited collaboration between classmates is allowed only until you start implementing your own solution. Once you have started implementing your solution, you may discuss programming language issues, you may offer or receive advice on specific bugs in your programs or others', and you may share test cases (if applicable), but you may not examine others' work directly (and should not show your work to others). Online research on the subject matter of the course is allowed, but obtaining working solutions from any source is prohibited.

Clarification

Paraphrased from a student's question and the official answer.

• Q: Can I start a portion of the set, finish implementing that portion, and then collaborate again on a different portion of the set? For example, on the first set, the 4-bit adder and multiplier portions seem independent.

  A: Yes you can.