Revision as of 11:10, 12 August 2008

CSC 103: How Computers Work

First half of Fall 2008: Sept 4th to Oct. 21st.

The Most Complex Machine., by David Eck, A. K. Peters, Natick Ma [1]. This book should be available at the Greycourt bookstore. ( List of Chapters)

Week 2:
- Binary system, arithmetic, logic gates (Chap 2)
- logic gates, binary adder (Chap 2)

Week3:
- Building a computer (Chap 5)
  - 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 (Chap 5)
  - video "Machine that changed the world"
  - Loom, Craig.

Week 4:
- Client/Server architecture. (Chap 10)
  - Trends.
  - Services.
  - Google vs. Microsoft
- Programming: Javascript (Chap 6)

Week 6:
- Programming: other languages
- Chapter 4, NP, solvability, towers of hanoi (Chap. 4)

- - Signs of the Singularity by Vernor Vinge.
  - Can Machine Be Conscious?, Christof Koch and Giulio Tononi.

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 * '''Week''' 8:
-** Singularity (Handouts)
+** Singularity:
+*** [http://cs.smith.edu/~thiebaut/research/singularity/ieee_spectrum__signs_of_the_singularity.pdf Signs of the Singularity] by Vernor Vinge.
+*** [http://cs.smith.edu/~thiebaut/research/singularity/ieee_spectrum__can_machines_be_conscious.pdf Can Machine Be Conscious?], Christof Koch and Giulio Tononi.
 ==Additional Resources==
 * [[IEEE_Singularity | IEEE Special Issue on Singularity ]]