CSC231 Schedule Spring 2017

--D. Thiebaut (talk) 10:37, 2 December 2016 (EST)

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Home | Syllabus | Schedule | Links & Resources

 

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Week 1 Jan 26, 27

Topics: Introduction	Lab/Hw	Reading
Friday Syllabus Class accounts The main players for this semester: PC Processor Memory Disk First program in assembly: recognizing the different elements of a program Structure Presentation Documentation Skeleton program Hello World! on Linux (and its Mac version) Linux command line, Bash shell. Some essential commands. Emacs editor.		Reading Chapter 1 in the Art of Assembly. Also Chapter 3, Sections 0 to 3.1.2. Sections 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.3.3, 1.3.4, and 1.3.5 in Carter's PC Assembly Language. Note, Carter uses 1A92h to represent a hexadecimal number. I prefer 0x1A92.

 

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Week 2 Jan 30, Feb 1, 3

Topics: Emacs, assembly, hexdump	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed A few words about "When Computers were Human," a video by David Alan Grier, editor of IEEE Annals of History of Computing. (In reference to the movie "Hidden Figures.") Emacs Lab The assembly process Declaring strings, and their location in memory Lab #1 on printing strings and solution programs Using hexdump and looking at the contents of binary files. slides (pdf) Friday: BASH LAB: Basic Navigation Commands and Subdirectories

 

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Week 3 Feb 6, 8, 10

Topics: Registers (eax, ax, al). The ADD Instruction	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed Back to hexdump and listings The mov instruction General purpose registers: al, ah, ax, eax... moving information in an out of registers and memory the add instruction slides (pdf) Friday: Linux Lab: More about files and directories. pushd, popd, history, less, cat, file, grep Moodle quiz on lab	Homework #1 will be released on Monday 2/6 at 11:00 a.m. You will find it on Moodle and you will have until 2/13/17 11:55 p.m. to submit it. Solution program	Read Chapter 4 Section 3 on the Mov Instruction. Read Section 4.1.5 on the General Purpose registers.

 

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Week 4 Feb 13, 15, 17

Topics: SUB, DW, DD, DB, Binary, Hex, Decimal conversion.	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed A few words about the programming part of Homework #2 The SUB instruction (subtracts source from dest) Review db, dw, dd, and how variables fit in memory Step-by-step execution of a program Getting a sense of speed of computation Comparing to Arduino Comparing to Raspberry Pi 3 Number systems. Understanding decimal, binary, and hexadecimal Counting Arithmetic Conversion A Python program explaining decimal to binary conversion Exercises Slides (pdf) Friday: Linux Lab: Manual Pages, and pipes. Moodle quiz on lab	Homework #2 is released on Monday 2/13 at 11:00 a.m. It contains a programming assignment, and a quiz to be answered on Moodle. The due date is Monday 2/20/17 11:55 p.m. Solution program(s)	Read Chapter 1 in the Art of Assembly reference by Randy Hyde, Sections 1.0 to 1.4.

 

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Week 5 Feb 20

Topics: Conversion binary, hex, decimal.	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed" A few more words about pipes: Python and Java pipes Converting decimal numbers into binary with Python Conversion from one base to another, binary, 10, hex. More arithmetic instructions: INC, DEC, MUL, DIV Logical instructions: AND, OR, XOR, NOT Representing negative numbers Slides (pdf) Friday: Linux Lab: Vi text editor, Redirection of stdin, and stdout	Homework #3 is released on Monday 2/20 at 11:00 a.m. It contains several quizzes to be answered on Moodle.. The due date is Monday 2/27/17 11:55 p.m. Solution program	Section 6.5.1.2 in Hall's Art of Assembly Sections 1.5 an 1.6 in Hall's Art of Assembly Section 6.5.6 and 6.5.7 on MUL and DIV in Hall's text. Skip the parts about IMUL, and IDIV which require knowledge of signed numbers. Also skip the part about the decimal adjust and other instructions in these sections. For next week, prepare by reading Section 1.7

 

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Week 6 Feb 28, Mar 2

Topics: Logical instructions, Logic Design, Signed Numbers	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed Logical instructions Logic design: A 2-bit adder (this won't be on the midterm exam) Signed numbers Signed magnitude 1's Complement 2's Complement slides (pdf) Friday: Linux Lab: Nasm as a tool, more advanced redirections, for-loops	Homework 4, due March 6 at 11:55 p.m. Solution program	Read Section 1.5 on Logical Operations on Bits Read Sections 1.7 and 1.8 on signed numbers.

 

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Week 7 Mar 7, 9

Topics: 2's Complement, Midterm	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon Sample midterm questions from previous years Exercises on 2's Complement Numbers LOOP instruction slides (pdf) Wed: MIDTERM EXAM: on paper, in class, closed books, closed notes, closed computers. - (solutions) Friday: No class	No homework assignment given out this week

SPRING BREAK

 

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Week 8 Mar 20, 22, 24

Topics: Loops and Addressing Modes	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed The Loop instruction Indirect Addressing Modes Working with arrays slides (pdf) Miderm exams will be returned. The grading was done as follows: 11 problems worth 10 points each were graded and generated a number between 0 and 110, which was translated into a letter grade. This letter grade was then transformed into another number using Moodle's number-letter translation table. This number is the one entered in Moodle. (Solutions to Midterm Problems) Friday: Linux Lab: Bash scripting	No homework this week	The Loop Instruction (Section 6.9.6) The Register Indirect addressing mode (Section 4.6.2.2) Other Addressing modes (up to Section 4.6.2.5)

 

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Week 9 Mar 27, 29, 31

Topics: Loops, arrays, game of life, conditional jumps	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed Working with arrays: Exploring Conway's Game of Life (see video links in the slides) Jumps Flags register Conditional Jumps slides (pdf) Game of Life programs developed in class Friday: Linux Lab: If Statements	Homework 5 (due 4/3/2017) Solution program	Unconditional Jump The Flags Register Conditional Jumps CMP instruction

 

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Week 10 Apr 3, 5, 7

Topics: Conditional Jumps	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed Finish the Linux Lab on if-statements. Conditional Tests A quick introduction to the ddd debugger slides (pdf) Friday: Linux Lab: Introduction to C	Homework 6 (due 4/10/17 at 11:55 p.m.) Solution program	Conditional Jump instructions

 

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Week 11 Apr 10, 12, 14

Topics: Function, Stack, Push, Pop	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed Functions, The STACK, ESP, EBP, Push, Pop slides (pdf) Friday: Linux Lab: Introduction to C, Part 2	Homework 7 (due 4/17/17) Solution program	Functions. Functions are also called procedures when dealing with assembly. You'll find this term used in Randy Hyde's documentation. Also, Hydes uses the proc and endp directives to define functions, which is fine. We won't in this class. Functions work just as well without!

 

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Week 12 Apr 17, 19, 21

Topics: Recursion, fact	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed Passing by reference Local variables Recursion Example1: Computing factorials slides (pdf) Friday: Linux Lab: Introduction to C, Part 3	Homework #8 (due 4/24/17) Solution program	Recursion chapter in Randy Hall's Art of Assembly. Hall uses 16-bit registers (ax, bx, bp, etc...) but the reasoning is the same as for 32-bit registers.

 

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Week 13 Apr 24, 26, 28

Topics:	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon/Wed Recursion Example 2: Towers of Hanoi Stack overflow in Java; an example Floating Point Numbers Generating NaNs in Java slides (pdf) Friday: Linux Lab: Introduction to C, Part 4	Homework 9 (Optional)	Introduction to Floating-Point Numbers

 

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Week 14 May 1, 3

Topics: Floating-Point Numbers	Lab/Hw	Reading
Mon Floating Point Numbers Recap slides (pdf) Wednesday: Final exam is released. Take home, open books, open Web, open computers. Due last day of exams.

Links_and_Resources

Pipelines, Branch Prediction, Hyper-Threading

• The 90-minute guide to Modern Microprocessors, a high-level coverage of pipelines, branch prediction, instruction parallelism, and hyper-threading.

Bash Shell & Linux Resources

• Ryan's Linux Tutorials
• Tutorial from the University of Surrey, UK