• Mohamed Hussein

Office Hours

    http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/sum2003/cmsc311/

In addition to this webpage, Dr. Hugue has provided a large number of resources on her main CMSC 311 including old homeworks, exams, etc.

Visit Meesh's 311 Webpage

• Midterms: 30% each
• Final: 40%

Your final grade is also based on projects given throughout the semester.

Basically, two grades are computed. The better of the two grades is your final grade, provided that projects meet minimum requirements.

Method 1

If you earn enough points from the projects assigned (the minimum cutoff will eventually be posted in the webpage and this syllabus), then you will be eligible to have your grades computed using Method 1.

You will have grades computed based on the percentages of exams given above.

In addition to meeting the minimum point cutoff, you must attempt at least 3 of the 4 assigned projects. This will be referred to as "meeting minimum requirements".

Method 2

Each project will be weighted a certain fraction of the total project grade, to be determined by the instructor.

The project grades will then count as 25% of your grade. The scores are combined with exam grades (exams are scaled to 75%), and then your grade with projects are counted.

Note: doing the projects may not always improve your grade.

If you meet minimum requirements on the projects (finish 3 of 4 projects, plus earn enough total points), then your grades will be computed based on the best grade of Method 1 and Method 2. The idea is to make sure you get something out of the projects, but not let your project grades hurt you.

However, should your grade from Method 2 be more than one letter grade higher than from Method 1, then you will receive one letter grade higher. This is again, to make sure that exam grades play an important enough role in your final grade. There may be exceptions to this policy if you do a substantive project. Those exceptions are at the discretion of the instructor.

If you do not meet minimum requirements, then your grades will be based on Method 2 (which presumably would lower your grades). There is at least a 1/3 letter grade deduction for not meeting minimum requirements.

Also, if you receive an F using Method 1, then no matter what you do on projects, the best you can do is a D in the course. This ensures that the tests still have meaning in the class.

If you wish to do a more substantive project, we can weight the project to be a higher percentage (up to 40% of the grade). You will need to present a project proposal and have it approved by the instructor. This project is generally a semester long project.

Although your grades may be computed as the best of Method 1 and Method 2, you should realize that doing the projects does NOT automatically guarantee your final grades will improve. I generally expect only students who are MUCH stronger programmers than test takers to have grades that will substantively improve.

Solutions to text problems and additional HW problems are available on Dr. Hugue's CMSC 311 website.

Additional problems may be provided to help you prepare for exams.

In addition, you are expected to read the textbook. While many students find such a task painful (often because English is a second language), it is, nevertheless, an important skill to learn, and it's better to learn now than later.

• Project 1. Hex dump program.
• Project 2. A webpage tutorial for buying and building a computer for $1000.
• Project 3. MIPS assembly language. We provide the C code, you translate (by hand) to MIPS.
• Project 4. Translate MIPS assembly to binary and vice versa.

Then, there is the optional projects.

• Write an assembler and interpreter. Use Java to allow users to load binaries, run programs, and step through each instructions. Have a GUI display. (You may work in teams on this).
• Write a simulator that allows you to process instructions with a modelled memory, CPU, etc. (You may work in teams on this).

The optional projects may make the project grade worth more than the 25%. This needs to be worked out with the instructor in advance, and the details written down and agreed upon.

Makeups will only be given to students with valid documentation. If you are sick, you must have a doctor state dates of incapacitation. In particular, it must state (1) the date which you were incapacitated, (2) and that you were too sick to attend classes).

You must contact the instructor via email/phone as soon as possible. If the instructor is contacted over a week after the exam has been given, you may receive a 0 on the exam, for failing to contact the instructor in a timely manner.

Requests for regrades on an exam must be made IN WRITING within a week of the exam being handed back. If such a request is not made within a week, the instructor reserves the right not to regrade the exam.

Please carefully read and consider the Computer Science Department policy regarding the use of computer systems, and the Office of Information Technology's policy regarding acceptable use of computer accounts provided for instructional use, in the Spring 2002 issue of the departmental newsletter, CS Tid-Bits, handed out with this syllabus. Note in particular the penalties for impermissible cooperation on programming projects, which is a violation of the University's Code of Academic Integrity. Any evidence of unacceptable use of computer accounts or unauthorized cooperation on exams or projects will be submitted to the appropriate authorities or to the Student Honor Council, which could result in an XF for the course, suspension, or expulsion from the University.

NOTE SPECIFICALLY that projects are to be done INDIVIDUALLY, unless otherwise specified by your instructor IN WRITING TO ENTIRE CLASS (verbal assurances don't count). For academic honesty purposes, projects are to be considered comparable to an extended take-home exam. That is, any cooperation or exchange of ideas which would be prohibited on an exam is also prohibited on a project assignment. Working IN ANY WAY with another student will be considered a violation and WILL BE REPORTED to the Honor Council. Students may not discuss pseudocode, design of a program or of individual functions, coding of individual functions, or any high-level code with anyone except the instructors and teaching assistants. Should you have difficulty with a programming assignment you should see your instructor or the teaching assistants in office hours, NOT solicit help from anyone else in violation of these rules. Students are welcome to study together or to receive help in learning the course concepts from any others, but exams and projects are to be solely and entirely each student's own work.

VIOLATIONS OF ACADEMIC HONESTY INCLUDE:

1. failing to do all or any of the work on a project by yourself, other than assistance from the instructional staff.
2. using any ideas or any part of another student's project, or copying any other individual's work in any way.
3. giving any parts or ideas from your project, including test data, to another student.
4. having programs on an open account or on a PC that other students can access.
5. transferring any part of a project to or from another student or individual by any means, electronic or otherwise.
6. publishing any of your code publicly (e.g., via a webpage) which other students can access, even if the project has already been completed.

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY, UNDER THE UNIVERSITY'S HONOR POLICY, OF ANY STUDENT WHO LEARNS OF AN INCIDENT OF ACADEMIC DISHONESTY TO REPORT IT TO THEIR INSTRUCTOR.

Also, for your benefit, you should indicate who your team member is early on. Thus, if you are a team member, and you change your mind, and break the team up, and there is similar code between you and a former team member, you will still be considered violating academic integrity.

You may also work individually on projects. For now, working individually does not confer any benefits. However, this may change, depending on the project description.

This list may vary according to the pace of lecture topics. A lecture is defined to be a 75 minute period of class time. The number of lectures is only approximate. Some topics may not be fully covered due to time constraints.

Overview (1 lecture)

• Introduction.
• General Overview of Computer Organization (CPU, Memory, Fetch-Decode-Execute Cycle)

Data Represenation (5 lectures)

• What's a bit, byte, bitstring?
• Conversion to and from base 10 from arbitrary base.
• Binary, Octal, Hexadecimal
• Unsigned binary
• Signed decimal: 9's complement, 10's complement (OPTIONAL)
• Signed binary: 1's complement, 2's complement, signed magnitude, excess/bias notation
• Binary Coded Decimal
• How many bitstrings given N bits?
• Range of numbers given N bits?
• IEEE 754 Single Precision Floating Point Representation
• Integer Addition/Subtraction
• Floating Point Addition/Subtraction
• Character Representation (ASCII, Unicode, EBCDIC)

Low-Level C Programming (3 lectures)

• Bitwise Operators
• Bitshift Operators
• Determining whether a Bit in an Int is Set or Clear?
• How to Create Bitmasks
• Determining Endianness of Machine
• Binary vs. ASCII files
• Pointer Arithmetic

• MIPS assembly language
• Encoding of instructions in binary
• Basic MIPS architecture
• Translation of C program snippers/functions to MIPS (conditional statements, loops, functions)
• Addressing modes (PC-relative, Register, Base, Pseudodirect)

Combinational Logic (3-4 lectures)

• Gates and Identities
• Overview of Boolean Functions, Truth Tables, Boolean Expressions
• Sum of Products (Disjunctive Normal Form)
• Functional Completeness
• Combinational Circuit Parts
  • MUX, DeMUX
  • Encoder, Decoder
  • Half Adder, Full Adder
  • Carry Lookahead Adder
  • Design of ALU
  • Programmable Logic Arrays (PLAs)
  • Various "tricks" to design circuits

Sequential Logic (3-4 lectures)

• Clock
• Edge Triggered D and T flip flops
• Tri-state buffers
• Sequential Circuit Parts
  • Registers
  • Synchronous, asynchronous counters
  • Register Files
• Timing Diagrams
• Design with finite state machines with output (Mealy/Moore)
• PLAs/ROMs used in design

Datapath and Control (5-7 lectures)

• How an assembly language instruction is executed (fetch, execute, decode)
• Basic MIPS architecture built from register files, MUX, control units, busses, etc. (Chapter 5 of book)
• Internal bus
• Control Units
• Register Transfer Language
• Microprogramming

Memory (2-3 lectures)

• RAM
• Interleaved memory
• Cache
• Virtual Memory
• Direct Memory Access (DMA)

Random Topics

• Interrupts
• I/O devices

Pipelining (2 lectures)

• Basics of Pipelining
• Amdahl's Law (not really pipelining...)