Instructor: Prof. William J. Taffe
Office: Memorial 205
Office Hours: See my home page
Class Meetings: T, Th 11:00-12:15 in Rounds 207 
          

Textbooks: Computer Systems Design and Architecture, 2nd edition by Vincent P. Heuring and Harry F. Jordan (Addison Wesley, 2004).  I used the first edition a few years ago with good results. I decided to readopt it for several reasons, it:

1. has a good selection and coverage of topics
2. is very modern and gives examples of current machines
3. has a simplified CPU (the Simple RISC Computer - the SRC) that is used to illustrate complex situations
4. includes good homework and exam problems and questions
5. reads quite well and can be used in a one-semester course

Slides: From time to time, I will be using pdf slides that came with our textbook (modified when necessary to correspond to our course).  The slides are in my account on oz.  You can access them by clicking on the links in the syllabus portion of this web page.   Although I will put links to all the slides on the page, we won't necessarily cover them all in class. If not used in class you may access them as an outline of the material, to use as study aids or use them in any other reasonable manner.

Role of the Instructor: There are many ways to teach. Lecture is the most commonly used, but often is the least effective. Educational research suggests that students who participate actively in the learning process learn more, especially over the long term. In this course, I will try to be more of a learning facilitator than a lecturer. Although I will lecture on some topics, I won't try to "tell you everything you have to know." We have an excellent textbook full of information, and it is your responsibility to read and study it. We will use class time for outlining the text and noting the most important parts, doing problems which illustrate significant points, and discussing aspects which are not clear. We'll discuss this further in the first class.

Grading:

• Exams 80% Three hour exams equally weighted will form 75% of your grade. The last one will be given on the date of the final exam and will not be cumulative. Exams will be open book unless the class choses differently.  
• Homework: 20% based on the results of problems assigned and discussed in class, and class participation.
  
  Reading and Homework Assignments

  Following are the approximate reading assignments, homework problems and exam dates for the semester. They are subject to modification as the semester progresses. This is still preliminary.
  
  

  Dates	Chapters	Slides	Topics
  Sept. 1	1	CH-1	Overview of Computer Architecture ... Goals of the course
  September 6,8,13,15	2	CH-2	Computer Classifications, Instruction Sets, RISC and the SRC, RTN
  September 20,22,27,29	3	CH-3	Performance, CISC vs. RISC
  October 4	...		First Hour Exam
  October 6,11,13, 18	4	CH-4	Processor Design ... Basic Principles
  October 20,25,27, Nov 1,3	5	CH-5	Processor Design ... Pipelining and Microcoding
  November 8	...		Second Hour Exam
  November 10, 15, 17, 22	7	CH-7	Memory Systems
  November 29 , Dec 1	8	CH-8	I/O
  December 6, 8	9	CH-9	Peripheral Devices
  December 15		Closed book ... open notes	Third Hour Exam ... 11:00-1:30

  
  

  Chapter Number	Homework Problems	Date to be prepared
  1	2,  3,  6a, 7,  8, 15, 17	Sept  8
  2	3,4, 5, 6, 12, 13	Sept 13
  2	7, 10, 15, 17, 18	Sept 15
  2	19, 20, 21, 25, 29	Sept 20
  3	none ... Instructor will do examples	Sept 22
  3	3.3, 3.5, 3.15, 3.19	Sept 27
  3	3.19	Sept 29
  4	none	Oct 6
  4	4.1, 4.2, 4.4	Oct 11
  4	TBA	Oct 13
  4	TBA	Oct 18
  5	none ... Instructor will do examples	Oct 20
  5	none ... instructor will do examples
  7	7.1, 7.2, 7.3 ... done in class
  7	7.18, 7.19, 7.20, 7.21	Nov 22
  8	TBA
  9	TBA

  Links

  • The SRC Assembler and Simulator