Dec-06: New wire has arrived! Head down to the lab and you'll find a number of new spools of wire in various colors. There's hundred of feet of it, so that should do the trick for connecting our boards!

Dec-01: Here are the solutions to the mid-term exam. This document provides the question, answer, and a discussion about common mistakes and misconceptions for each problem. Please use these solutions, in combination with your own exam, to be sure that you understand all of the concepts involved.

Nov-18: Check out Revision 1 of Lab 6, which includes instructions on the the of the newly updated assembler. In particular, at long last, labels and pseudoinstructions work. The add-two-from-memory.asm example has also been updated to show the use of these new features. Finally, notice the new deadline for this lab, giving you enough time to use the new assembler to complete the work. [Notice: If you completed the lab with the old assembler and submitted it, you do not need to update your solutions and resubmit them; those old solutions, if they work, are perfectly acceptable.]

Nov-18: With apologies, this morning's 10:30 am - 11:30 am office hour must be cancelled. If you want to meet with me, just send an email, and I should be able to find time this afternoon. Also, watch this space for an announcement that the new assembler, which provides labels and pseudoinstructions, is ready. Coming very soon (and at long last)...

Additionally, many people have observed that the assembler requires a blank line at the end of the file, lest a cryptic error message about CharStream.Next() appear. This characteristic is not a bug. Each instruction or constant---henceforth a statement---must be terminated with a newline character. Thus, since the last statement must also conform to this requirement, then there must be a blank line at the end of any well-formed assembly code file.

Nov-10: Lab 6, with instructions for a working assembler, has been posted on the Assignments page. The assembler is not complete, but it works correctly and helpfully. A newer, more updated version will be available soon.

Oct-21: First, I appreciate very much that every single one of you that I have seen, since yesterday, has asked how I am feeling. I am happy to report that I managed to get that migraine under control after a few hours, and that I am doing much better. It is thoughtful of everyone to ask, and it's meaningful to me that you remembered to do so.

Second, having missed a lecture on Wednesday due to my misbehaving head, we will meet tomorrow for a lecture at 11:00 am, thus not holding a lab. If the last-minute change of schedule is a problem for those in the noon lab section, contact me, and we can make arrangements to address the problem. (Preferrably, however, you can simply make the lecture at 11:00 am.)

Third, the due date for Lab 4 is hereby extended to Tuesday at 5:00 pm.

Oct-20: Annoyingly, due to a migraine, I must cancel today's lecture. Stay tuned to find out what we will do for Friday (perhaps lab, perhaps lecture). Also watch this space as I look for ways to make up for this lost hour, even if it requires scheduling a few oddball times, repeating a lecture during those times, and asking that you show up for any one of those time slots. Something along those lines, I hope, will work to make up for the lost time. In the meantime, work on your multiplier!

Oct-08: For Lab 3b, I have posted, on the Documents page the datasheet for the 74LS273 chip (also known as the register or flip-flop chip). You will notice that, in addition to having eight flip-flips (with a D and Q pin for each), there is a single CLK input, connected to all of the flip-flops.

Finally, there is a single input, labeled NOT(CLR). When 1 is provided to this input, the flip-flops operate normally; when 0 is provided, then Q=0 for all of the flip-flops immediately, irrespective of the value on CLK. To control this pin, you should use one of the pushbuttons, (e.g., P_A) and its negated output (e.g., NOT(A)). Thus, when you push the button, you can reset all of the flip-flops to 0; otherwise, the flip-flops operate normally. The other button (e.g., P_B) can be used to control CLK with the output of the positive output (e.g., B), allowing you to clock the register at will.

Oct-07: First, a number of you failed to notice the announcement regarding the submission of the take-home question from the mid-term exam. If you are one of those, then consider this episode your warning: That announcement was posted 24 hours before the question was due, and you should have seen it and followed its instructions. I will, this time, accept submissions via email, but next time I will not guarantee work in which you fail to follow posted instructions.

Second, there will not be a lab tomorrow (Friday). Instead we all will meet at 11:00 am for a lecture in SMudd 207 (our usual classroom). You therefore have a little extra time on Lab 3b, whose due-date will be extended by one more week, giving you a chance to ask more questions about flip-flops and counter structures.

Oct-06: You noticed, I am sure, Question 5 on the mid-term exam, which is a take-home question that is due tomorrow (Thursday) at 5:00 pm. I want here to be more specific about that due-date: By 5:00 pm tomorrow, your answer, written on paper, must have been submitted either by handing it to me, or by sliding it under the door of my office. I will not accept late submission. It should go without saying that you may not use notes, books, or any other references, nor may you collaborate on the solution with anyone.

Oct-03: I have created a study session page, on which we will perform our question-and-answer session to prepare for the mid-term exam on Wednesday. This study session will be held on Monday, October 04, from 9:00 to 10:00 pm, on this web page. You will be able to post questions by adding comments to the page, and I will post my answers by responding to your comments. (You can then, of course, comment on my comments, etc.) Feel free to go there and start posting questions ahead of time; I will also leave the page up after the session is over so that you all may review the answers later.

This form of online interaction is a bit of an experiment, so I hope that it works for us. Please expect to be a bit patient, as there may be a few wrinkles in the system that need fixing. Feel free to email me if you try to use the page and find that it does not work for you, and we'll try to work around the problems that we encounter.

Oct-02: I have posted, on the Documents page, a sample mid-term exam. Keep in mind that this document is meant to give you a sense of what kinds of questions will be on the in-class mid-term exam on Wednesday. It is not intended to be any kind of comprehensive study guide.

Watch for a notice, tomorrow, of instructions on how we will conduct an on-line study session, some time Monday evening. Questions about any of the topics we have covered, including questions about what you see on this sample mid-term, will be fair game.

Sep-27: Today's office hours, normally from 4 to 5 pm, are cancelled in favor of the talk being given by our alum, Prof. Neil Heffernan '93, from the CS department at WPI.

Sep-16: You are hereby divided into sections! Beginning tomorrow, you must attend the lab section to which you are assigned. Specifically, the membership in the sections are:

Sep-14: The enrollments in this class are high enough that we must split the labs into two sections. Specifically, Fridays will have a lab section 1 from 11:00 to 11:50 am, followed by lab section 2 from 12:00 to 12:50 pm. In order to partition the class into two sections with (close to) the same number of students in each, I seek volunteers for lab section 2. Specifically, if you are willing to be in lab section 2, send me email stating that fact right away.

I hope to have 12 or 13 such volunteers. If I don't get them, then, with the help of the Registrar, I will choose, at random, students for whom a shift into lab section 2 will not cause an academic conflict. Those students will simply be moved into the noon lab section on Fridays. I would, of course, prefer a contingent of students that volunteer for this shift in their schedule.

If you are able to volunteer, please send your email to me no later than Thursday, 2010-Sep-16, 4:00 pm. At this time, I will set to dividing the labs and then notifying each of you as to which lab section will be yours for the remainder of the semester, beginning the next day.

Aug-29: Welcome! Regular announcements, including information about problem sets, projects, class preparation, cancellations, and just about anything else will be provided here. Check this space daily (at the least) to see if any new announcements have been posted. Alternatively, subscribe to the course RSS feed. Prior to the first class at 11:00 am on Wednesday, September 8^th, you must read the Course Information.