CSC103 2008

CSC 103: How Computers Work

Schedule

First half of Fall 2008

Textbook

The Most Complex Machine., by David Eck, A. K. Peters, Natick Ma [1]

Book chapters

• Chapter 1: What Computers can do. Must read
• Chapter 2: (read 2.1) computing with Silicon. Arithmetic, circuits
• Chapter 3: (read 3.1 and 3.3) Building computers
• Chapter 4: Theoretical computers. Computational universality in Section 4.1 is important
• Chapter 5: History of computers
• Chapter 6: Programming: basic concepts (variables, loops, decisions)
• Chapter 7: Programming Methodology for building large programs
• Chapter 8: Programming Languages
• Chapter 9: Applications
• Chapter 10: Cooperating Computers. Parallelism and networks
• Chapter 11: Graphics: math, realistic images
• Chapter 12: AI

Organization and Schedule

• Week 1:
  • Chapter 1, general introduction

• Week 2:
  • Chapter 2, binary system, arithmetic, logic gates
  • Chapter 2, logic gates, binary adder

• Week3:
  • Building a computer
    • von Neuman architecture
    • Von Neuman bottleneck
    • CPU, RAM, Secondary Memory
    • Case Study: the Suse EEE, and the switch from magnetic to semiconductor storage
  • History of computers
    • video "Machine that changed the world"
    • Loom, Craig.

• Week 4:
  • Client/Server architecture.
    • Trends.
    • Services.
    • Google vs. Microsoft
  • Programming: Javascript

• Week 5:
  • Programming: Javascript
  • Programming: Javascript

• Week 6:
  • Programming: other languages (Macros?)
  • Singularity, AI

• Week 7:
  • Chapter 4, NP, solvability, towers of hanoi
  • Singularity

• Week 8:
  • Advanced material