Course Home

Syllabus

Timeline

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My Home

My Schedule

Contact Information:

Instructor:	Zachary Kurmas	Office:	MAK C-2-316
Phone:	331-8688	Office Hours:	MWF 10-11 (physical)
Home page:	http://www.cis.gvsu.edu/~kurmasz

E-mail is the best way to contact me. During the week, expect a reply within 24 hours. Also, feel free to visit my office any time the door is open, even if it isn't officially office hours. (This semester, however, I may be in my office less than usual as a result of social distancing and GVSU's modified course delivery.)

Course Documents:

• Syllabus
• CIS Academic Honesty Policy

Announcements:

I will post announcements at Piazza. Please check there regularly.

Discussion Board:

Please post questions about homework, projects, etc. to Piazza. Doing so allows everybody to see the question and answer and saves me the time of answering the same question multiple times. Other students can also answer your question, which may help you get a faster response.

Grades:

I will post grades on Blackboard.

Assignments:

Due	Name	Details
Tue. 1 Sep.	First Day Survey
Wed. 16 Sep.	Homework 1: Introduction to Digital Logic	Due at 5:15 p.m. Please submit hard-copy
Wed. 30 Sep.	Project 1: Build an Adder
Mon. 5 Oct.	Homework 2: Boolean Algebra
Wed. 7 Oct.	Project 2: Build a Subtractor and SLT
Fri. 16 Oct.	Homework 3: Sequential Circuits
Fri. 16 Oct.	Project 3: Build an ALU
Mon. 2 Nov.	Sequential Circuits Review	Not due for credit
Mon. 9 Nov.	Assembly Review	Not due for credit
Wed. 11 Nov.	Homework 4: Single Cycle CPU	Please work in pairs.
Fri. 20 Nov.	Project 4 (Phase 1)
Wed. 25 Nov.	Homework 5: Cache	Problems 1 - 6 only.
Mon. 14 Dec.	Homework 7: Pipeline Performance	Not due for credit
Mon. 14 Dec.	Homework 6: Pipeline Implementation
Mon. 14 Dec.	Practice Final	Not due for credit

Labs:

Date	Name	Details
Tue. 1 Sep.	Lab 1: Tools
Tue. 8 Sep.	Lab 2: Number Conversions
Tue. 15 Sep.	Lab 3: Unsigned Adder
Tue. 22 Sep.	Lab 4: Introduction to Digital Logic
Tue. 29 Sep.	Lab 5: Subtraction and Comparison	Get started on Project 2
Tue. 6 Oct.	Lab 6: ALUs	Get started on Project 3
Tue. 13 Oct.	Lab 7: Sequential Circuits
Tue. 13 Oct.	Lab 7: Introduction to Assembly
Tue. 20 Oct.	Lab 8: Assembly Branches
Tue. 27 Oct.	Lab 9: Computer Instruction Types
Tue. 3 Nov.	Lab 10: Loops and Memory
Tue. 10 Nov.	Lab 11: Build Single Cycle CPU	Please work in pairs
Tue. 17 Nov.	Lab 12: Cache (part 1)
Tue. 17 Nov.	Lab 12: Cache (part 2)
Tue. 1 Dec.	Lab 13: Pipeline
Tue. 8 Dec.	Lab 14: Recursion

(Labs are due the following Monday, unless otherwise specified.)

Text:

The official textbook for this class is

• Digital Design and Computer Architecture (2nd edition) by David Money Harris and Sarah L. Harris. ISBN: 9780123944245

If you already have a copy of the Patterson and Hennessy text (shown below), you may use that text instead. This book goes into more depth for some of the later course topics. It can be helpful; but, I wouldn't spend more than about $10 on it.

• Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface, 4th Edition by David Patterson and John Hennessy. ISBN: 1558606041

Also, the differences between the 1st and 2nd edition of Harris and Harris are minimal. If you can find a cheap copy of the first version, go ahead and use it.

Reference:

• JLS
• Mars
• MIPS Reference Card
• Videos
  • Supplemental Videos for CIS 251.
  • Relays
  • Transistors (from Veritasium)
  • Pipelining
• Number bases
• Twos complement
  • Wikipedia Article
  • Thomas Finley
  • converter
  • "New Math"
• Digital Logic stuff
  • Karnaugh Map explanations from
    • University of Southern Maine,
    • Wikipedia, and
    • Embedded.com.
  • More about relays.
  • Transistors:
    • More about transistors.
    • An article about how transistors really work.
    • Selected transistor-related pictures.
    • Entertaining, but informative video
• Nand2Tetris.This course, developed by Noam Nisan and Simon Schocken, is a series of projects in which students build a (simulated) computer from NAND gates; then build a simple assembler, programming language, and operating system; and finally, implement Tetris on the system they created.
• Assembly language resources
  • MARS. A MIPS assembly language simulator written in Java.
  • SPIM. A MIPS32 assembly language simulator.
  • Norman Matloff's Introduction to Linux Intel Assembly Language.
  • Notes on MIPS floating point from McGill University.
• Computer architecture resources
  • A brief description and history of the MIPS architecture.
  • Intel Architecture support page.
• Textbooks (and companion software, slides, practice problems, etc.)
  • Companion site for Harris and Harris text (includes lecture slides).
  • Computer Organization and Design Fundamentals a free e-book from David Tarnoff.
  • Schaum's Outlines on Computer Architecture. Only $20.
  • Resource page for the Stallings text.
• Just for fun:
  • Technomancy

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Updated Wednesday, 2 December 2020, 5:48 PM