The Instructor

I am often in my office, CMC 327. My office phone number is 646-4364, and my home number is 663-7123. My office hours for the fall term of 2003 are Monday 2A, Wednesday 3A, Thursday 11:00-12:00, and Friday 2A. I am also available many other times, so feel free to drop in if my door is open.

Book

The textbook for this class is Computer Organization and Design, the Hardware/Software Interface, 2nd edition, by David Patterson and John Hennessy. Patterson and Hennessy are very big names in computer architecture, and they are excellent writers to boot.

Your Grade

Your grade in the course will be determined by your performance on two takehome midterm exams, a takehome final exam, and homework. Each of these four pieces will count for 25% of your grade.

Rough Schedule

• Week 1: PDP8/E architecture and assembly language
• Week 2: Finish PDP8/E. Performance evaluation (Ch. 2)
• Week 3: Digital logic (Appendix B)
• Week 4: MIPS architecture (Ch 3)
• Week 5: Arithmetic (Ch 4)
• Week 6: Data path and control (Ch 5)
• Week 7: More data path and control, including pipelining (Ch 6)
• Week 8: Memory hierarchies (Ch 7)
• Week 9: Buses and I/O (Ch 8)