CS208 Introduction to Computer Systems
Friday, 31 October 2025

+ Zoo debrief

+ Coming up
- Buffer overflow
- [Leave asm behind for a while]
- Processes
    - programs that run other programs
    - interprocess communication (IPC)
    - input and output streams
    - writing a tiny command shell
    - [briefly] multi-threaded programs
- Networking
    - clients and servers
    - protocols
    - sockets
- Memory hierarchies
    - caches
    - paged virtual memory

+ (Again) bits, bytes, files, memory
- what's physically there?
    - storage media
        - magnetic tape
        - SSD - solid-state drive (including thumb drives)
        - paper
        - hard disk
        - floppy disk (3.5", 5")
        - optical disk (including CDs)
        - RAM - (memory that only remembers while the power is on)
        - ...
    - ...
- bytes as atomic objects
    conceptually, all info in modern computers is stored
    with 1 byte as the base unit of storage
- what is happening when I use hexdump -C?
- od, xxd,...
- 

+ The buffer overflow assignment
- Why?
- What?
- Getting started