Course Instructor: Gary Tyson

Office Location: 163 Love Building
Phone: 850-644-3088 (email is better)
Office Hours : Tuesday 1:00pm – 2:00pm and Wednesday 10:00am – 11:00am
Email Address: {tyson @ CS}

Teaching Assistant: Martin Brown

Office Location: TBA
Office Hours: TBA

This class is offered as two 75 minute lectures per week. Attendance at all lectures is required to do well in this course.

This course is intended for majors in computer science. The material in the course includes computer system components; microprocessor and minicomputer architecture; stack computers; parallel computers; overlap and pipeline processing; networks and protocols; performance evaluation; architecture studies of selected systems.

Coverage includes the design of important historic processors, the design of memory systems, and modern processor designs including those used in mobile devices.

The best way to contact the teaching staff outside of class and office hours is via email. Email sent to the class email group is considered required reading. When you send email to the teaching staff, only email sent from an FSU email account is guaranteed to be read by the teaching staff. Email sent from sites such as yahoo, hotmail, etc. will often be filtered out by spam filters and deleted without being read.

There will be two programming assignments in which you will simulate the execution of a microprocessor. You will be given plenty of time to complete each project. However, if you wait until the last minute or the last weekend before the due date to start, you may not be able to finish. Plan to do some work on the project every day. Also try to have it finished a few days ahead of the due date - many unexpected problems arise during programming, especially in the debugging phase. Meeting course deadlines is your responsibility.

The Florida State University Academic Honor Policy outlines the University's expectations for the integrity of students' academic work, the procedures for resolving alleged violations of those expectations, and the rights and responsibilities of students and faculty members throughout the process. Students are responsible for reading the Academic Honor Policy and for living up to their pledge to ". . . be honest and truthful and . . . [to] strive for personal and institutional integrity at Florida State University." (Florida State University Academic Honor Policy, found at http://dof.fsu.edu/honorpolicy.htm). The Academic Honor System of the Florida State University is based on the premise that each student has the responsibility (1) to uphold the highest standards of academic integrity in the student's own work, (2) to refuse to tolerate violations of academic integrity in the university community and (3) to foster a high sense of integrity and social responsibility on the part of the university community. You can find the honor code in your FSU Student Handbook, on line at http://registrar.fsu.edu/student_handbook/.

Final grades will be based on the total points earned on two programming projects, one exam and a group research project.

You are required to take the exam at the scheduled times. If a serious medical or personal emergency is not involved in your missing an exam, you will receive a zero for that exam. If a serious medical or personal emergency results in a missed exam, you must come in person to the course instructor's office hours and substantiate any related request for special consideration with written proof consisting of original and verifiable documents, for example, a letter from your medical doctor, a hospital emergency room receipt, or written funeral home documentation.

If you anticipate an exam in another course or a religious holiday which conflicts with our exam time, you must notify the instructor at least two weeks before the exam date in person during office hours, or the request will not be considered. The exam dates are given at the beginning of the term so that you can avoid scheduling job interviews or other commitments on exam days, hence job interviews etc. are not considered valid reasons for missing an exam.

Attendance at all lectures and recitations is required to do well in this course.

Attendance will not generally be formally recorded this semester, with the exception of the first day of classes. Attendance may however be taken on some days. Your level of class participation (actually attending, doing in-class exercises, asking and answering questions) will be taken into account in final course grading, especially if your point total falls on a borderline between letter grades.

It is against university policy and academic principles to register for two classes which meet at the same time, whether in whole or in part. The teaching staff of this course will make no special arrangements whatsoever for anyone who somehow registers for overlapping course meetings.

FSU policy on excused absences: Excused absences include documented illness, deaths in the family and other documented crises, call to active military duty or jury duty, religious holy days, and official University activities. These absences will be accommodated in a way that does not arbitrarily penalize students who have a valid excuse. Consideration will also be given to students whose dependent children experience serious illness.

It is not likely that this will change, but circumstances might occur which would make changes necessary, at the discretion of the instructor. Points are allocated and weighted as follows:

• Two Programs: 20% of total points (10% each)
• Exam: 50% of total points
• Research Project: 20% (same score for each member of group)
• Classroom Participation: 10%
• Total: 100%

There are no letter grades for individual projects or exams. The final course letter grade is based on the weighted total of points earned. A total grade score of 90 will always be at least an A-. A curve will be used if appropriate, and if necessary.

Your level of class participation (attending, asking and answering questions) will be taken into account in final course grading, especially if your point total falls on a borderline between letter grades.

Please note that doing poorly in a course is not a reason for an incomplete (grade of "I"). Read the FSU Bulletin for a discussion of the policy on incompletes. If you are having problems in the course, come talk to the course or recitation instructor as soon as you possibly can.

Students with disabilities needing academic accommodation should:
(1) register with and provide documentation to the Student Disability Resource Center; and (2) bring a letter to the instructor indicating the need for accommodation and what type. This should be done during the first week of class.

This syllabus and other class materials are available in alternative format upon request. For more information about services available to FSU students with disabilities, contact the:

Student Disability Resource Center
874 Traditions Way
108 Student Services Building
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4167
(850) 644-9566 (voice)
(850) 644-8504 (TDD)
sdrc@admin.fsu.edu
http://www.disabilitycenter.fsu.edu/

Note on course exams: any requests for specific special exam arrangements due to a registered disability must be brought to the course instructor at least two weeks prior to the exam date, or they will not be considered. In addition students must follow all rules and procedures set forth by the SDRC.