CS611
Assembly Language Programming and Machine Organization
Fall 2003

Instructor: P. Hatcher
Office: Nesmith 310
Phone: 862-3778
E-mail: hatcher@unh.edu
Office Hours: MWF 9:00-10:00am, MWF 11:00-11:30am, or by appointment (send e-mail to request an appointment)

Teaching Assistant: Li Ye
Office: Nesmith 315
E-mail: lye@cs.unh.edu
Office Hours: TuTh 1-3pm

The prerequisite for this course is CS515.

The key goals for the course are to understand program and data representation, to become familiar with assembly language and machine language programming, to understand the impact on software of basic computer architecture concepts such as the memory hierarchy, and to study fundamental system software such as assemblers, linkers and debuggers.

An outline of the material covered by this course is given here.

Grading

• Each program will be worth 10% of the course grade.

• The midterm exam will be worth 10% of the course grade.

• The final exam will be worth 20% of the course grade.

The programming assignments are (with tentative due dates):

1. Convert Unicode to and from FTU-8: due Sept 14.

2. Write a disassembler for vm611 programs: Sept 28.

3. Write an assembler for vm611 assembly programs: due Oct 12.

4. Emulate IEEE floating point addition: due Oct 26.

5. Perform just-in-time translation of vm611 programs for Intel IA-32 execution: due Nov 9.

6. Implement a simple threads library: due Nov 23.

7. Implement a simple file system: due Dec 14.

The programming assignments must be done in C or Intel assembler.

Programming assignments may be handed in late at a penalty of 5 points per day up to one week late. A program is not considered late unless turned in after 8am on the day after the due date. There is one exception to this late policy: Program 7 may not be turned in after 8am on Friday Dec 19.

The grading of programming assignments will be based primarily upon demonstrated correct functionality. That is, you will be awarded points for what your program actually does. Some test cases may be public but others will be hidden, so careful testing will be required.

Points will be deducted from your programming assignment grade if your work is not adequately documented and structured. You must follow the following guidelines:

• your code should be properly and consistently indented;

• place { and } in a consistent manner;

• use blank lines liberally to improve readability;

• test all library calls (e.g. malloc) for failure;

• your code should compile without any warning messages;

• each function should have a header explaining its purpose;

• avoid long functions;

• global variables should be used sparingly and for good purpose;

• modularize appropriately (hide symbols);

• function bodies should be well-commented;

• use symbolic constants when appropriate;

• always use function prototypes; and,

• choose meaningful variable and function names.

In addition, lines should not exceed 80 characters when printed using a tabstop width of 8. It is best to not put tabs in your files. Have your editor automatically expand tabs into spaces. It is also best to use a small indentation amount, like 2.

If you have any questions about these rules for program layout, see me in advance, not after I turn your graded assignment back to you.

The midterm exam will be given during a normal class meeting, probably on Wednesday, October 15. A sample midterm is available as a Postscript document on the CIS machines in ~cs611/public/sample-midterm.ps.

The final exam will be comprehensive and will be given during finals week: Friday, December 19, 8-10am in Nesmith 329. A sample final exam is available as a Postscript document on the CIS machines in ~cs611/public/sample-final.ps.

Students receiving at least 65% of the course points are guaranteed at least a C-. Students receiving at least 75% of the course points are guaranteed at least a B-. Students receiving at least 85% of the course points are guaranteed at least an A-.

This course is designed to be a challenging one. The material can be low-level and confusing at times, but more importantly this course is designed to develop your skills at writing larger programs. Some students find it difficult to make the adjustment to writing slightly more complex programs and do not do well in this course. Here are the grade distributions for the past semesters when I have taught the course:

CS611 Grade History

Semester	As	Bs	Cs	Ds	Fs
Spring 2003	11	10	6	6	9
Fall 2002	5	7	6	1	12
Spring 2002	14	11	5	3	8
Fall 2001	3	1	0	1	1
Spring 2001	6	11	5	2	5
Fall 2000	8	2	2	0	2
Spring 1999	4	11	4	1	6
Fall 1998	2	7	4	1	4
Spring 1997	16	10	7	3	3
Spring 1996	1	6	3	4	10
Fall 1995	1	4	3	2	3
Spring 1995	7	15	11	5	13
Fall 1990	5	13	15	2	6
Fall 1988	6	9	8	1	6
Fall 1987	11	5	0	1	10
Total	100	122	79	33	98

Most often a student's failure in the course has very little to do with ability. Over the years I have made the following observations about students who fail and students who succeed in the course:

Succeed	Fail
come to class start thinking about assignments right away ask questions in class ask questions in office hours ask questions via e-mail follow class discussion understand that programming is debugging	skip class start assignments too late afraid to ask questions don't come to office hours don't send me e-mail don't know what is going on in class think that programming is typing and praying get caught cheating

Textbooks

On reserve in the Kingsbury library:

• Computer Organization & Design: The Hardware/Software Interface
  by Patterson and Hennessy

• C: A Reference Manual
  by Harbison and Steele

I do not think you need to purchase either of the above books. Access to the copies on reserve in the library should be sufficient. However, if you want to order your own copies of either of the books on reserve, I suggest Quantum Books or Amazon.com Books.

We will also use two manuals that I have downloaded from Intel's Developer Site:

• IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual, Volume 1: Basic Architecture
• IA-32 Intel Architecture Software Developer's Manual, Volume 2: Instruction Set Reference Manual

Computer Accounts

Policy on Cheating

In addition, submitting programs that are based upon code retrieved from Internet sources is also explicitly forbidden and will be considered "cheating".

Because so much of your course grade is based upon the programming assignments, I will treat cases of cheating severely. If caught cheating on an assignment, you can expect to (at least) receive a failing grade for the course.

In addition, of course, collaboration is also not allowed on the midterm or final exams.

Comments and questions should be directed to hatcher@unh.edu