Fall 2018
Introduces the basic design of computing systems, computer operating systems, and assembly language using a RISC architecture. Describes caches and virtual memory. Covers the interface between assembly language and high-level languages, including call frames and pointers. Covers the use of system calls and systems programming to show the interaction with the operating system. Covers the basic structures of an operating system, including application interfaces, processes, threads, synchronization, interprocess communication, deadlock, memory management, file systems, and input/output control.
| Section | Location | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 03 | BK 310 | 1:35pm-3:15pm Tu/Fr |
Note: Profs. Michael Shah and Alden Jackson are running other sections of the course, which may be structured slightly differently: See their course pages for details:
| Name | Location | Hours | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nat Tuck | NI 132 E | We 3-4pm; Fr noon-1pm | ntuck ⚓ ccs.neu.edu | |
| Charmik Sheth(+) | WVH 102 (++) | We 10am-2pm | sheth.c ⚓ husky.neu.edu | |
| Shraddha S. Mhatre(+) | WVH 102 (++) | Mo 10:30am-12:30; Mo 2-4pm | mhatre.shr ⚓ husky.neu.edu | |
| Durwasa Chakraborty | (+++) | (+++) | chakraborty.d ⚓ husky.neu.edu | ) |
| James Elliott | (+++) | (+++) | elliott.jame ⚓ husky.neu.edu | |
| Akash Parikh | (+++) | (+++) | parikh.ak ⚓ husky.neu.edu | |
| Savan Patel | (+++) | (+++) | patel.sav ⚓ husky.neu.edu | |
| A. Trihatmaja | (+++) | (+++) | trihatmaja.a ⚓ husky.neu.edu | |
| Nakul Ramesh | (+++) | (+++) | vankadariramesh.n ⚓ husky.neu.edu |
(+) Will be grading for this section.
(++) Single instance location changes may be posted to Piazza.
(+++) See the course page for the other sections for these office hours. Tell the TA you’re in Tuck’s section and show them your assignment for minimum confusion.
This is an initial schedule, subject to revision as the semester progresses.
Assignments will frequently be due at 11:59pm on Wednesday.
| Week | Starts | Topics | Work Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1+ | Sep 3 | Intro: Systems, C, and ASM | - |
| 2 | Sep 10 | AMD64 Assembly; ASM: “Design Recipe” | HW01: Linux Setup & Hello Worlds |
| 3 | Sep 17 | Processes & Memory; ASM: Syscalls, I/O, the heap | HW02: ASM Calculator, Fib |
| 4 | Sep 24 | C: Basics, Arrays, Pointers; A Simple Tokenizer | HW03: ASM: Merge Sort w/ Dynamic Allocation |
| 5 | Oct 1 | Syscalls: fork, exec, waitpid; Building a Shell & pipe | HW04: Shell Tokenizer |
| 6 | Oct 8 | read, write, proc table, vmem; shared mem & data races | CH1: Unix Shell |
| 7 | Oct 15 | semaphore locks & deadlock; threads and mutexes | HW05: Parallel Sort (Processes) |
| 8 | Oct 22 | cond vars and atomics; malloc: free lists | HW06: Parallel Sort (Threads) |
| 9 | Oct 29 | malloc: optimizations & threads; modern allocators | HW07: Simple Memory Allocator |
| 10 | Nov 5 | OS Kernels; Looking at xv6 | CH2: Advanced Memory Allocator |
| 11 | Nov 12 | File Systems: FAT; File Systems: ext | HW08: Examining xv6 |
| 12+ | Nov 19 | The FUSE API | HW09: Simple FS |
| 13 | Nov 26 | Modern File Systems; Solutions for Concurrency | - |
| 14+ | Dec 3 | Wrap-Up + A Transactional Filesystem | CH3: Advanced FS |
(+) One Lecture Weeks: Start, Thanksgiving, End
Recommended Readings by Week:
There is no required textbook for this course.
Recommended reading:
Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective
Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron
Third Edition
We’ll also be using these online resources:
Percentages are approximate.
The number to letter mapping will be as follows:
95+ = A, 90+ = A-, 85+ = B+, 80+ = B, 75+ = B-, 70+ = C+, 65+ = C, 60+ = C-, 50+ = D, else = F
There may be a curve or scale applied to any assignment or the final grades, in either direction.
There’s a homework assignment due nearly every week.
The homework portion of your grade will include some “virtual” assignments which you’ll get a grade for but don’t require assignment submissions:
Challenges are just like homework, except they’re harder, worth more points, and they are graded more harshly. You’ll want to start early and plan to spend a lot of time on them.
For all assignments except the last challenge, late submissions will be penalized by 1% for each hour late.
For the final assignment, late submissions will not be accepted.
Homework and project grades will be posted on Bottlenose. If you think your work was graded incorrectly, you can challenge your grade through the following procedure:
First, go to the office hours of the course staff member who graded your work. If you can convince them that they made a concrete error in grading, they will fix it for you.
If the grader doesn’t agree that the grade was wrong, you can issue a formal grade challenge. This follows a variant of the “coaches challenge” procedure used in the NFL.
Here’s the procedure:
Students needing disability accommodations should visit the Disability Resource Center (DRC).
If you have been granted special accomodations either through the DRC or as a student athlete, let me know as soon as possible.
Copying code and submitting it without proper attribution is strictly prohibited in this class. This is plagiarism, which is a serious violation of academic integrity.
Details:
Lecture Notes
Lecture notes are not starter code, and should not be copied without attribution. As long as attribution is provided, there is no penalty for using code from the lecture notes.
Collaboration and Attribution:
Since it’s not plagiarism if you provide attribution, as a special exception to these rules, any code sharing with attribution will not be treated as a major offense.
There is no penalty for copying small snippets of code (a couple of lines) with attribution as long as this code doesn’t significantly remove the intended challenge of the assignment. This should be in a comment above these lines clearly indicating the source (including author name and URL, if any).
If you copy a large amount of code with attribution, you won’t recieve credit for having completed that portion of the assignment, but there will be no further penalty. The attribution must be obvious and clearly indicate both which code it applies to and where it came from.
Penalty for Plagarism
First offense:
Avoid copying code if you can. If you’re looking at an example, understand what it does, type something similar that is appropriate to your program, and provide attribution. If you must copy code, put in the attribution immediately, every time or you will fail the course over what feels like a minor mistake.