CS 201
Computer Systems Programming
Chapter 1
“CS 201 Introduction”
Herbert G. Mayer, PSU CS
status 9/27/2012
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Syllabus
 This is CS 201
 Who is the Instructor?
 Goals of CS 201
 Who are You?
 Grading, Homework, Late Hand-in
 Silver Bullet
 Extra Credit
 Misc
 Microsoft Assembler
 Text Books
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This is CS 201
 This is CS 201, Computer Systems Programming
 Mondays and Wednesday 18:40 – 19:30 URBN 250
 We discuss use of computers from a systems
programmer’s view
 With the ultimate goal of learning how to build better
systems software and computers in the future
 And using current computers efficiently
 Efficient generally means: minimizing the time a
human programmer has to wait for computed results
 Sometimes efficiency means minimal resource use
 Electrical power used in a farm of 1000s high-end
servers that require giant air conditioners; warrants
turbo boost, sleep mode, job migration
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Who is the Instructor?
 Herb is German immigrant, worked in US
computer industry and academia
 MS EECS (electrical engineering an computer
science) UCSD 1983; awesome beach & campus!
 PhD CS TU Berlin 1995; awesome city, now united!
 Professional focus on compiler optimization, alias
analysis, programming languages, VLIW
 PhD Thesis on automated, safe MP-code
generation via source analysis to detect aliases
 Retired after 24 years at Intel Corp. In Hillsboro
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Compilers for systolic array architecture 1980s
Manager of tuning lab & error elimination in new CPUs
 Teaching since 1983 at SDSU, UCSD, and PSU
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Goals of CS 201
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Understand and use computer systems from a software
developer’s perspective. Teach certain C/C++ systems- and
assembly language programming and reading skills
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Show how to measure and improve program performance
based on machine architecture. Upon successful completion of
this course students will also be able to:
1. Describe basic computer system organization including the
operating system, including processes, files, virtual memory,
and underlying hardware, CPU, registers, memory hierarchy
2. Discuss in detail how Virtual Memory Management (VMM)
worked on early 32-bit architectures; relevant now again that
64-bit addressing is standard; few  machines have 264 bytes
physical memory
3. Describe HLL translation system, including preprocessing,
assembling, compiling, and linking, plus function of object files
and shared libraries
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Goals of CS 201, Cont’d
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Write C programs to practice systems programming concepts,
including file I/O, system calls, memory management,
exception handling and process management
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Do arithmetic in hexadecimal, decimal, octal, and binary
notation, and convert between these notations
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Explain how data types such as integers, characters, floating
point numbers, arrays, pointers, and structures are
represented internally in computer
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Describe the instruction set architecture for Intel x86 family,
including the arithmetic/logic instructions, registers, memory
model and addressing- and control instructions
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Explain how high-level programming constructs such as loops
and recursive function calls can be implemented in underlying
machine code
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Goals of CS 201, Cont’d
 Describe in detail how a data cache functions, and
why it improves performance; emphasis is: locality
 Explain how exceptions, traps, and context switches
occur and how they are handled at machine level
 Explain the performance impact of hardware
features in pipelined, superscalar, and MP
architectures; explain awesome benefit of locality
 Use profiling and timing facilities to identify
performance bottlenecks in HLL programs
 Describe low-level architecture details of the still
emerging Intel x86 architecture
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Who are You?
In a few minutes, 2-6 students volunteer to articulate
in class, explaining:
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Your name
Your field of study and current progress
Why do you take CS 201?
What is your expectation of this class?
What is your minimal goal?
Which is your ideal learning goal?
Have you worked in the computer industry?
Which computer subjects are you interested in?
Anything else relevant to this course
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Grading, Homework, Late Hand-In
 Acquire up to 1,000 points total; 1,000 points = 100%
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5 homeworks at 120 points each = 600 points
Midterm, in class, in ~week 6
= 200 points
Final, in class, in week 11, also
= 200 points
Homework to be emailed before the start of class on
the due date
Homework emails should use the subject line “CS 201
HW x”, where ‘x’ is the homework number
Work that is handed in 1 minute up to a day late
experiences 10% deduction of the total points
Each additional day late: another 10% deducted
Homework 5 days late or later is not accepted
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Silver Bullet
 One single time each student is allowed to hand in
homework up to 2 days late without penalty
 This is called the CS 201 Silver Bullet
 Silver Bullets cannot be split, traded, or sold on the
black market 
 While tracking homework grades, consumption of
the silver bullet is also tracked
 Note that the 2 days worth of Silver Bullet cannot be
applied to 2 different late homeworks, even if they
are both just 1 day late
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Extra Credit
 Extra Credit: is a way to improve your grade by up to
a half grade, i.e. up to 50 points max
 Extra Credit is granted for good ideas expressed in
class, constructive questions and contributions in
class, identifying errors in class material
 Volunteers may present the HW or select topics in
class, 10 min. each for a few extra credit points
 Any error in class material, even the slightest typo –
but only pointed out the first time– is worth some
extra credit
 Presenting smart homework solutions in class can
get you extra credit
 Each time you catch and correct an error made by
the instruction you receive extra credit, and each
time the instructor will claim: “This was a deliberate
error to test your alertness!” 
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Misc
 Our TA is Derek Qian
 Will introduce himself at end of first class
 His email: dejun@cs.pdx.edu
 And also: electronseu@gmail.com
 Derek holds additional office hours Monday and
Wednesdays in the fish-bowl from 9 AM to 9:45 AM
 Derek teaches class on Microsoft masm on
Wednesday 10/17/2012
 Our grader is Jim Miller, at jgm2@pdx.edu
 Mail all HW to the grader and cc herb@cs.pdx.edu
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Microsoft Assembler masm
Assembler discussed in this class is Microsoft masm:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/library/hb5z4sxd(v=vs.100).aspx
That MS software is available in CS computer Lab as
part of Visual Studio
Walk up to a machine and look at the following:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual
Studio 10.0\VC> ml /?
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Text Books
1. Required: Computer Systems: A Programmer's
Perspective, 2nd edition, Bryant and O'Hallaron,
Prentice Hall, ISBN-13: 978-0-13-610804-7, © 2011
2. Recommended: The C Programming Language, 2nd
edition, Kernighan and Ritchie, Prentice Hall, ISBN 013-110362-8, © 1988 or newer
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