CSC 103: How Computers Work

First half of Fall 2008

Textbook: The Most Complex Machine, by David Eck, A. K. Peters, Natick Ma

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

CSC103 2008