cs470 - Fall 1996

What and When

Sections 51 and 52 meet Thursdays from 6:10 pm to 8:00 pm in SB-225.

Goal

To give students an unitary view of factors deciding what the architecture of a computer is. Design, Computer Organization and Assembly Language are presented in their complex interaction.

Instructor

Virgil Bistriceanu (you are now in his home page)

Office hours (held in SB-110)
- Monday 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
- Wednesday 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Phone: (312) 567-5146
email: virgil@csam.iit.edu (from UNIX accounts) or IN%"virgil@csam.iit.edu" (from VAXes)

Teaching Assistant

Kuo-Pao Yang

Office hours (held in SB-108)
- Monday 1:00 - 2:00 pm
- Wednesday 1:00 - 2:00 pm
email: yangkuo@charlie.iit.edu (from UNIX accounts) or IN%"yangkuo@charlie.iit.edu" (from VAXes)

Textbook

"Computer Organization & Design"

David Patterson, John Hennessy

Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. 1994

ISBN 1-55860-281-X

Grading

Homeworks: 20%
Midterm: 20%
Final: 20%
Laboratory: 20%
Project: 20%

Late homeworks won't be accepted as solutions are posted immediately after papers are collected.

Everything you have to turn in is due at the beginning of the class the day the work is due.

Exams are open-book(s) open-notes.

A: 90 - 100
B: 80 - 89
C: 70 - 79
D: 60 - 69
E: 0 - 59

Failure to take a passing grade in either exams, project, lab or homeworks earns you a failing grade.

Class attendance and participation will help settle the borderline grades. Regular class attendance is important and students are expected to actively participate in class: questions and comments are always welcome.

Syllabus

Fundamentals of computer design. (2)
Basic organization of a von Neumann computer. (2)
Instruction set design. (5)
Addressing modes. (3)
CPU implementation. (6)
Interrupts. (3)
The memory hierarchy 1: general design principles. (1)
The memory hierarchy 2: the cache. (2)
The memory hierarchy 3: main memory. (2)
Virtual memory. (2)

Important events

Deadline for choosing the project partner: September 19
Midterm exam: October 10
Preliminary report on the project due: October 17
Last day for official withdrawal: November 1
Project due: November 28
Final exam: December 12, 6:00 to 8:00pm, room SB-225

Varia

Unless otherwise stated all papers you turn in will be TYPED. No handwritten work is accepted. Each page will have a header as follows:

the left side: your name
middle: page number and the total number of pages (ex. 2/5 indicates this is page 2 out of a total of 5)
right hand side: name of the assignment (ex. Homework #2)

Each page will also have a footer:

the left hand side will contain the following text: cs470-<section>: Spring 1996 where <section> stands for the section you are in
the right hand side will contain the following text: Illinois Institute of Technology - CSAM

The header and the footer will be Arial, 10 points, regular. The text for the paper itself will be typed using Times Roman (12 points regular, except for titles which may be larger and bold).

Click here to see a template.