This document serves as both the course's syllabus and its main web page.
Professor Perry Kivolowitz has retired from full time teaching after 19 years (ten at UW-Madison and nine-and-counting at Carthage College). He continues to teach two highly specialized courses: CSC4730 - Operating Systems and CSC3510 - Computer Organization.
In addition to his years in academia, Professor Kivolowitz enjoyed a more than 40 year career as an entrepreneur and inventor mostly in the field of visual effects for motion pictures and television. He has been awarded with two Emmy Awards and an Academy Award for his work.
Finally, Professor Kivolowitz has had a passion for Computer Science for 50 years, long enough to posses lived experience from the late dawn / early adolescence of computing.
| Days | Times | Room |
|---|---|---|
| TR | 2:20 PM to 4:00 PM | ZOOM |
All office hours are held via ZOOM.
This link will remain valid all term.
| Day | Times |
|---|---|
| M | 11 AM to 12 PM |
| T | 11 AM to 12 PM |
| R | 7 PM to 9 PM |
| F | 12 PM to 1 PM |
Office hours may be recorded if the content is deemed by me to be of general use to the class.
With some exceptions, to be decided by me, help on projects will not be available within 24 hours of a project's due date. This prohibition is imposed to encourage good working habits including but not limited to starting work early / working steadily. This is not intended punitively.
Primary: OSTEP This book is free.
Ancillary:
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Required: Advanced Programming in the UNIX environment, third edition. I will refer to this as Stevens and Rago. If you have any questions about the Unix / Linux environment and APIs, consult this book before approaching me.
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xv6 risc-v This book is free.
There are two types of readings in this class.
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Assigned readings will come from OSTEP.
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Unassigned readings will come from the two ancillary texts. Being unassigned, you will not be told when to do them. Instead, review the table of contents in each of the two ancillary sources to get a general idea of that they contain. Then, later in the course, when you have a question, review the ancillary texts for details.
You expected to have consulted the texts before approaching me with questions. If I should answer something to the effect that the answer is in the book, you are expected to explain to me what you read and articulate what you found unclear. This step is take to encourage good working habits on your part and is not punitive.
The following are the topics which we can expect to be covered:
Attendance will be taken at nearly every class. The only exceptions will be when I am so excited to get down to business, that I forget to take it.
You get 6 free absences. After that each absence will remove 1 percent from your aggregate score at the end of the term. All absences are treated equally. That is, there are no "excused" absences.
The number of free absences equates to three weeks of missed class time so it is unlikely you'll exceed this and incur a penalty.
Should a long-term absence due to uncontrollable circumstances become necessary, please speak to me as soon as possible.
Once attendance has been taken, anyone arriving after than will be counted as absent. Generally, attendance will end between five and ten minutes after the official start of class.
No, your coach cannot force you to leave class early to make practice. This comes directly from the current Athletic Director. If you are friends with persons arriving at practice before 4 PM, they do not have afternoon classes or are choosing to put their extra-curricular sports ahead of the REST OF THEIR LIVES.
Below is a listing of 10 "projects" of which only 8 are truly projects. One is a tutorial and another is just to provide proof you're ready to tackle the two kernel projects.
The Weight column provides a weighting of the project within the Project Grading Component. It suggests my anticipation of the relative difficulty of each project compared to the others.
The OSTEP column indicates how the projects correspond to course material. The indicated chapters will be most helpful.
The S&R column indicates which chapters of Stevens and Rago can be helpful.
The warmups each contribute one point to your final grade.
The projects together contribute 92 percent of your final grade.
| # | Project | Space | Weight | OSTEP | S&R |
|---|
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Requirements are spelled out in each specification.
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Any deviation from the specification likely results in penalties.
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Generating even a single warning during building your own code will result in a 10 percent penalty. I will build on MacOS.
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Commenting is required. Failure to adequately comment is a mandatory 5 percent penalty.
Late work (factoring in one free grace day) will not be accepted.
To state this differently, if an assignment is due on day n, you have until the end of day n + 1 to turn it in. After that, it will not be accepted.
I award partial credit for substantial but incomplete work. This is unlike the real world where incomplete work earns termination of your employment. Hand in what you have... it's better than a zero.
| Gradable Component | Weight | Notes |
|---|
There is very little likelihood a curve will be applied in computing your final grade.
There are no exams in this course and projects already include a grace day. Therefore, no significant accommodations ought to be necessary but present your papers to me at the start of the semester anyway. We'll discuss what should be done.
The Health and Counseling Center (HCC) addresses student physical, mental, and emotional well-being. All services, provided by experienced professionals, are free and confidential to currently enrolled, full-time undergraduate students. Students must call or visit the HCC to schedule an appointment. Health services are available by walk-in or appointment from 8:30am - 3:30pm. Counseling walk-in sessions are available Monday through Friday from 11:30am to 1:00pm, last appointment begins around 12:30pm, first-come first-seen. TWC, first floor(behind mailboxes)| 262-551-5710 | Website | Mon-Fri 8:30am to 1pm and 2pm to 4:00pm.
Carthage College strives to make all learning experiences as accessible as possible. If you anticipate or experience academic barriers due to your disability (including mental health, learning disorders, and chronic medical conditions), please let me know immediately so we can discuss options privately. To establish reasonable accommodations, you must register with Warren Wolchuk in Learning Accessibility Services [email protected].
All work will be examined for originality. Should I find evidence of copied work, all parties shall receive a grade of zero. If any individuals are found to have copied a second time, the individuals will be reported to the Provost's office for discipline and will receive a zero for the assignment. Should an individual be associated with a third instance, in addition to a second trip to the Provost, the individual shall receive an F in the course.
The decision of the instructor is final.
Apart from lecture, I will not "just give you the answer." Rather, you must demonstrate that you have exhausted the means available to you to learn on your own. This is not punitive. This will be a requirement for your future. You'll get in the habit now. This may be a lasting and meaningful "gift" to you from me.
When I was an undergraduate, Jishnu Mukerjee was the graduate student who was in charge our department's PDP-11/60. It ran an early version of Unix, V6 to be exact... sound familiar?
The first time I had a question, I asked Jishnu and he answered it.
The second time I had a question, I asked Jishnu and he answered it.
The third time I had a question, I asked Jishnu and he handed me a print out of the entire OS. He said, "All your answers are in here."
It was the greatest gift he could possibly give and I am thankful to him to this day.
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent