The course textbook is David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy. Computer Organization and Design (MIPS Edition), the Hardware/Software Interface. Sixth Edition. Morgan Kaufmann. 2020.

For which parts of the book correspond to which lecture, have a look at the overview of what to study for the exam.

Your total score for this course is calculated as follows:

• During the semester: permanent evaluation counts for 55% of the course grade.
  • Permanent evaluation: Assignments Computer Systems
  • Permanent evaluation: Projects Computer Architecture
    
  Assignments and Projects are handed in via Blackboard or Inginious. Which platform should be used will be explicitly mentioned in the assignment. Projects are evaluated during an oral defense.
• Examination period: the Theory exam counts for 25% of the course grade.
  The course material covered by the theory exam is described in this overview of what to study for the exam.
• Examination period: the practical exam together with its oral defense counts for 20% of the course grade.
  • Examination period: Practical exam (in computer lab: preparation of the design of a datapath as well as translating a high-level program to that architecture)
  • Examination period: Defense of practical exam with questions to test Computer Systems background
    
• To pass the course, you need to attend or submit every part that will be graded (if not, your grade will be "AFW" - absent). Additionally, you need to get an overall score of at least 50%, and a score of at least 40% on the theory exam, and a score of at least 40% on the practical exam, and a score of at least 40% on the year projects (architecture and systems combined). If not, your grade will be min(7, your_score). your_score is the score you would get when applying the weights given above.

• The weights of the different parts of the course remain the same as during the January session:
  • 25% theory-exam
  • 20% practical-exam
  • 35% project computer architecture during the year ("permanent evaluation")
  • 20% exercises computer systems during the year ("permanent evaluation")
  Each of these parts may have to be re-done during the Second Session.
  
• For the "during the year" parts, you will need to individually finish and submit (and maybe defend) the "Computer Systems" assignments and a "Computer Architecture" project. You can find the assignments here for Computer Systems and here for Computer Architecture. Submission is done via Blackboard or Inginious.
• The structure of the examination remains the same. All defenses take place during the examination period.
• The examination method and the material to study for the Second Session are identical to that of the First Session. There will again be a written theory exam about both CS and CA, as well as a practical exam with oral defense on Computer Architecture. The course material covered by the theory exam is described in this overview of what to study for the exam.
• You do not have to (but may) re-do those (entire) parts for which you got a score of at least 50% (i.e., "partiële vrijstelling"). By "entire" we mean that exemptions will in principle not be given for sub-parts of each of the four parts of the course. Note that the grades for the practical exam and the architecture projects are "linked together". This means that if you failed to get a passing grade for the practical exam you will also have to re-do the architecture projects, and vice-versa. You should explicitly ask for an exemption via e-mail and you will be notified via e-mail whether this request was granted.
• In order to determine which parts you have to re-do, you can use the following table:

  Score	Action
  You passed the course in the 1st session	You do not have to re-take anything
  Your score for the theory exam is less than 50%	You have to re-do the theory exam
  Your score for the practical exam is less than 50%	You have to re-do the practical exam and the architecture exercises
  Your score for the architecture exercises is less than 50%	You have to re-do the architecture exercises and the practical exam
  Your score for the systems exercises is less than 50%	You have to re-do the systems exercises

In case you did not pass the course in year N, (partial) exemptions may be granted in year N+1. These exemptions are always determined on a case-by-case basis. You need to request exemptions by e-mail to the prof. with the assistant in cc:. You will then receive a reply describing the exemption(s) granted. Keep that reply e-mail and send it back to the prof. (and assistant in cc:) before the exam period as an official reminder and proof that exemption(s) were granted. Note that if you do not request exemptions via e-mail, none will be granted implicitly.

The general principle for exemptions in year N+1 is that you may receive a partial exemption for those parts of the course for which you obtained at least (greater than or equal) a score of 70% on that part of the course in year N. Parts are: (1) theory exam AND computer systems assignments during the term, (2) practical exam AND computer architecture assignments during the term. "AND" means that the minimum score of 70% is required for both components. Note that exemptions do not carry across more than one year (i.e., to year N+k, with k greater than 1).

In each lab session, you will be given some assignments (Computer Systems) and/or a project (Computer Architecture). All assignments for Computer Systems are made individually, projects for Computer Architecture are solved in groups of two students.

The assignments can be found here.

In each lab session, you will work on a project in pairs of two students. Projects build on each other, to converge into a unified whole at the end of the semester. During the semester, you will be evaluated three times. At these evaluation moments, you will present your solution of the past projects by giving a demo and answering some questions. You will immediately receive feedback, which you can use to improve your solution for the following evaluations.

For every project, you submit a small report of the project you made by filling in verslag.html completely. A report typically consists of a summary of everything you implemented and an explanation of the choices you made ​​in the implementation. Again, put all your files in a tgz archive. The name of that archive consists of your last and first name, without spaces. If, for example, your name is Jan De Smedt, the file name of your archive must be DeSmedtJan.tgz.

All your solution files and answers must be included in this archive. You need to submit the archive via Blackboard.

The projects can be found here.

The HTML forms you will need for the solutions (right click, save as):

• verslag.html

You have to adapt the HTML-code manually (i.e., in notepad) to fill in the forms. A good HTML tutorial can help you with this. Remark: in the forms, the <u> element for underlining is redefined to "overline". This way, you can express NOT in Boolean algebraic expressions: e.g., NOT A OR B becomes A+B. Unfortunately, double overline is not possible. Of course, you can always use the NOT A OR B notation.

Throughout the course we will use the following tools:

• Logisim
• MARS

Both tools require java to run. The tools are installed on the lab computers.

If you would like to run a UNIX distribution on your own computer, we suggest Ubuntu. You can install Ubuntu next to your Windows using the Windows installer. After installation, you will be able to choose on startup between Windows and Ubuntu. If you would like to run Ubuntu inside your Windows, you can install Ubuntu on VirtualBox by following these steps.

In order to copy files in Windows from and to servers (e.g., between your laptop and the studento.uantwerpen.be server) you can use WinSCP. You can simply use the scp command ("secure copy") if you are using UNIX.

You can only access the studento.uantwerpen.be server from a university network or through a vpn connection (to access this page, open it after you are logged in to Blackboard).

The burden of timely submission of your work on Blackboard is on you! (late submissions are not accepted)

• Beware that Blackboard's clock may differ slightly from that on your computer. Allow a margin for submission.
• Be sure to check that your submission was actually made. Check for example under Grade Centre whether your (as yet unmarked) submission shows up.

Session 1: Introduction to Unix

Exercises on Unix shell commands. These exercises are not graded. However, they are an important preparation for the UNIX project which is graded!

Material:

• Handouts with practical information
• Handouts Introduction to UNIX
• Exercises Introduction to UNIX
• Solutions to the exercises
• Names.tgz

Session 2: Regular Expressions

Exercises on Regular Expressions and the use of grep and sed. These exercises are not graded. However, they are an important preparation for the UNIX project which is graded!

Material:

• Exercises on Regular Expressions
• tekst_voor_grep.txt
• test.html

Session 3: UNIX Scripting

Exercises on UNIX Scripting in Bash. These exercises are not graded. However, they are an important preparation for the UNIX project which is graded!

Material:

• Exercises on Bash scripting
• Solutions to the exercises

Session 4: UNIX Project

In this assignment you will apply the things you have learned in the past sessions. This assignment has to be handed in on the Inginious platform and will be graded.

Material:

• Handouts with information about Inginious
• Assignment Archive

Intermezzo: vi

To be announced

Session 5: Data Representation

In this assignment you will apply the things you have learned in the theory lectures about data representation. This assignment has to be handed in on Blackboard and will be graded.

Material:

• Handout with information about data representation
• Assignment
• files.py
• input.txt

Session 6: MIPS: Introduction

In this assignment we will become familiar with the MIPS assembly language. This assignment has to be handed in on the Inginious platform and will be graded.

• Handouts with information about MIPS
• MIPS code from the demo
• MIPS Reference sheet
• MARS Simulator download link

Session 7: MIPS Project part 1: Components

For the MIPS project you will have to make a video game. In this assignment we will first build a number of components that will be used in the next assignment. This assignment has to be handed in on Blackboard and will be graded.

• Assignment
• Handouts about Bitmap, File reading, etc.
• Slides

These two text files can be used to see if your file reader works correctly:

• Text file to test file reading
• Another text file to test file reading

Session 8: MIPS Project part 2: Game

For this assignment you will combine the components you made during the previous sessions into a fully working video game.

• Assignment
• game.asm (template file for the assignment)
• input_1.txt

Second Session

All assignments from the 1st semester have to be handed in before Wednesday August 14 2024, 22h00:

• UNIX project: the same assignment
• Data representation: Important: new assignment PDF
• MIPS intro: the same assignment
• MIPS project: Important: the scoring for the MIPS project has changed. Your score, as given by the table in the PDF, will be re-scaled. You need to get 30/40 in order to pass the assignment. If you score below 30/40, you score will be reduced to 19/40

Project 1: Gates and Wires

Introduction to Logisim and the use of gates.

Material:

• Slides with practical information
• Slides about truth tables
• Project assignment

Project 2: Adders

Build an adder (ripple carry adder and carry lookahead adder).

Material:

• Slides
• Project assignment

Project 3: ALU

Build an ALU.

Material:

• Project assignment
• ALU_GroupXX.circ
• tests.zip
• Test script (with bug fix)

Project 4: Memory

Build a register file, counter, stack, and a finite State Machine for a traffic light.

Material:

• Project assignment

Project 5: Datapath

Build a program counter and a datapath.

Material:

• Project assignment
• SD_GroupXX.circ
• Test script
• Tests
• Lecture slides

Project 6: Full Datapath

Add branch, jump and immediate instructions to the instruction set.

Material:

• Project assignment
• Test script
• Test files

Second Session

This is a variation on the projects of the first semester.

The goal is to individually solve a variation of all projects, with the differences explained in the following assignment:

• Project assignment second session retake
• Test_2324_zit2.py
• ALU_tests_16bit.zip
• FD_tests_16bit.txt
• SD_tests_16bit.zip
• ALU_GroupXX.circ (16-bit version)
• SD_GroupXX.circ (16-bit version)