CSC 258: Computer Organization

University of Toronto, Fall 2008

Lecturer:

Alan J Rosenthal
[e-mail address removed from web page to avoid harvesting by spammers -- you can guess it from the URL]   (no HTML e-mail please)
BA 3229

Lectures:

Tuesdays, 7:10 to 9:00, BA 1210

Lecturer office hours (during the term):

Tuesdays, 5:10-6:00, in my office (BA 3229), or by appointment.
We may move to a larger room sometimes, in which case I will leave a note on my door.
Exception: On November 4, I have to leave early to get ready for the midterm.

Tutorials:

Tuesdays, 6:10-7:00, starting in the second week. Surname A-K in BA 3004; surname L-P in BA 3008; surname R-Z in BA 3012.

Lab sessions:

There is a lab familiarization hour on September 18, and then there will be four graded lab sessions, on Thursdays, 6:10 to 9:00 PM, in BA 3165. Please see the accompanying "CSC 258 labs" handout.


Recommended textbook:

Mano and Kime, Logic and Computer Design Fundamentals, any edition, Pearson / Prentice-Hall.

You needn't necessarily buy this particular book, or any book. There is a document about various textbooks on the course web page.


Course topics:

gates, boolean algebra, combinational circuits, sequential circuits, gate and circuit implementation, CPU organization, computer arithmetic, machine language and addressing, microprogramming, a little i/o, interrupts, CPU design options including RISCs.


Important prerequisite note:

This course has course prerequisites and a CGPA prerequisite. The prerequisites are your responsibility. If you do not have the prerequisites and you do not receive special permission to take the course, you will be removed from the course at some future time when the A&S office does their checks.


Schedule:

Grading scheme:

Labs:10%total for multiple dates as described on the labs page
Assignment 1:5%due 5:00 p.m., Friday October 3
Assignment 2:5%due 5:00 p.m., Friday October 17
Mid-term test:15%6:00-7:00ish, Tuesday November 4, different rooms (TBA)
Assignment 3:10%due 5:00 p.m., Friday November 14
Assignment 4:10%due 5:00 p.m., Friday December 5
Final exam:45%as scheduled during the December exam period

To pass the course you must receive at least 35% (out of a hundred that is) on the final exam.

Some assignments will be submitted on-line, and some on paper. Paper submissions must be written on standard 8½x11" paper and fastened with a single staple in the upper-left corner. Please use the supplied cover sheet. No envelopes, please; any fancy enclosure will be thrown out. Paper assignments should be deposited in the drop-box labelled "CSC 258" in BA 2220. They can be deposited in the drop-box any time up to the due time.

Late assignments will only be accepted under exceptional circumstances and with a written explanation sent separately by e-mail. To submit an assignment late, submit it in the usual way and then send the lecturer an e-mail message or bring him a note. More information on the course web page.

Any disagreements with the grade assigned to an assignment or the midterm should normally be submitted to a TA or the lecturer within about a week of its return. Regrading requests submitted after that might be taken less seriously unless we made a substantial grading error; as well, you then probably won't get your work back until the very last class.

Work submitted for regrading during the last two weeks of classes will not be returned until after the final exam. (You may wish to photocopy it first.)


Collaboration and plagiarism

I would like to encourage you to work on the course material with others, but you must take care that it does not turn into plagiarism.

Plagiarism is the representation of someone else's creative work as your own. If you submit an assignment containing someone else's work, this constitutes the academic offence of plagiarism and will be taken very seriously! I suggest limiting your collaboration with others to non-assignment material. Students have been prosecuted and convicted for handing in work written for hire, written by personal tutors, copied from the web, or with just a bit too much text borrowed from a friend.

With course work, in which you are expected to submit something on your own and thus cannot put a collaborator's name on it, the line between collaboration and plagiarism can become difficult to draw. Thus we will set the following guidelines:

You may discuss general approaches to assignments with others, but you may not bring your own actual solutions (complete or partial) to such discussions, and you must not take away any written notes from such discussions. In particular, the final write-up or composition of your assignment must be done in isolation from others, and you may not type assignment code into a computer together.
It is not difficult for graders to detect excessive collaboration. Note that it is also an offence to assist others in committing plagiarism.


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