The course instructor is Dean Brock. The course lectures will be delivered on Monday evening from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM in Robinson 125.
Generally, lectures review and illustrate concepts covered in the textbook. CSCI 255 students are expected to consult the course schedule and read the relevant sections of the textbook before coming to class.
All class handouts can be found through the following URI:
The textbook for the course will be Introduction to Computing Systems: From Bits and Gates to C and Beyond written by Yale Patt and Sanjay Patel and published by McGraw-Hill (ISBN 0-07-237690-2).
Grades will be based on projects, weekly quizes, one final exam, and lab grades as follows:
| Component | Points |
|---|---|
| Projects | 20% |
| Quizes | 30% |
| Final exam | 25% |
| Labs | 25% |
| Total | 100% |
There will be three or four projects. These will be circuit designs or LC-2 programming assignments. Project assignments will be posted on the CSCI 255 project index.
In general, projects can be done in groups of three students. However, if two groups turn in projects that are too similar to have be derived by independent work, both groups will receive a grade of 0 for the project. Also, any project completed by a group must be augmented with a "diary" that details the work done by individual group members. The instructor reserves the right to assign different members of the project different grades.
There will be six 30-minute quizes, given bi-weekly starting 11 February. These quizes will be given at the beginning of the class. Be sure to arrive on time when quizes are scheduled.
Each quiz will be based on ungraded homework assignments published on the class homework index at least one week in advance of the quiz. You should review the ungraded assignments and make sure you can do them correctly before coming to class. When appropriate solutions to the ungraded assignments will also be posted.
The lowest quiz grade will be dropped when computing the final course grade. By the way, the quizes will only get harder as the semester progress. It would be a good idea to be present and do well on the early quizes.
My office is Robinson 221A, and my office hours are XXX. However, the best way to get in touch with me is to send email to brock@cs.unca.edu.