10 November: Remember that Mike is happy to answer any questions
about his part of the unit by email anytime up until Monday night (but will be
in Canberra on Tuesday). If you need face-to-face discussion, send him an
email (or you could try to catch him at 4:30i on Monday outside E6A 116,
but best to send him an email first so he knows to look out for you!).
8 November: Marks for assignment 2 are now on iLearn. Marks less than 5 are not consiered to be a satisfactory attempt at the assignment.
The marked assignments can be collected from the Science Centre from later today.
8 November: Solutions for tutorials 7-11 have been released. No late submissions for these tutorials will now be accepted.
Pre-exam consultation: On Monday Nov 11, Len will be available in
his office at 3pm for pre-exam consultation. You can bring questions from past
exam papers, from tutorials or from your own thinking/reading to discuss.
You do not have to book in advance, but if you are planning to come
then email Len and he will know to wait for you if you are delayed.
You can also ask questions by email.
November 1: Revision notes from Len are now on line. Please be sure
that you fully understand all the revision points and ask Len (email or in
person) if there is anything you do not know.
October 28: Len apologises for the late release of tutorial 11.
Please do attempt it - Len will grant a reasonable extension.
October 27: As discussed in lectures, I want you to keep learning
(focus hard on the lecture material), but I'm not planning more prac work.
At this stage I hope you're preparing for the exam.
Scott will be in the lab and available for marking or
answering questions. Prepare well!
October 17: At yesterday's liaison meeting, students reported that
some are finding the current pace of lectures difficult. This morning we will
discuss what can be done to help with that.
There will be review lectures on Thursday of week 12, but other ideas
are also welcome. Please come to discuss this morning or email Len.
October 11: Electronic submission for assignment 2 is now open in iLearn.
Please upload your proces_slow.c and process_fast.c files to iLearn before the lecture on Wednesday.
Please submit a printed copy of your report at the lecture on Wednesday 16th
or in the COMP226 submission box before the lecture.
You may also submit your report as a PDF file to iLearn if you wish, but we still require you to submit a printed version.
If you do not have access to iLearn then, as a last resort, you should send your assignment solution to Len via email.
October 10: A further error in the example of Sharpen in assignment 2. As the text says, the division is to be by 8 not by 16.
This has now been corrected. Please ensure that your programs implements the
division by 8.
October 2: A couple of students have pointed out arithmetic errors in the
examples in assignment 2. These have now been corrected. Thanks to those who reported the problem.
The errors appeared in the example calculations of Smooth and Sharpen. There was an addition error.
September 26: You should definitely have started assignment 2
by now. Everything you need is available.
September 18 Assignment 2 is due October 16th. The assignment
specification is now available and you can make a start, particularly on
the Ergonomics section. Some target performance figures are yet to be
provided, and some program files - watch this space for an update.
However, you can start now to think about the problem and how you might
address it.
September 9 This week's practical refers to the hardware manual
for the UltraSPARC IV+ Processor. Please do some introductory reading
before the practical session. For those who already tried it, the link
to the manual is now working.
September 6 Thank you for your assignment 1 submissions. There's
now one more thing to do (and it will help you!). Please read about
bug reports and submit yours by next
Friday.
September 5 In lectures today I (Mike) stole some time from Len to
make sure that everyone knows about mikesa1 and mikessubmit (see below in this
newslist if you don't!), and to remind everyone that Assignment 1 is due on
Friday at 8pm. Don't be late! I also pointed out, importantly, that your
work on assignment 1 won't be over once you've handed it in. Keep watch on
Saturday for information about what you need to do next (it's not onerous,
but it is important, and it might help you get a much better mark).
September 5 Minor updates to lecture slides happen from time to time. The slides will be finalised after lecturing of the material is finished. You
can see the last update time on the files as listed in the browser.
September 4 There is now a program which you can use to
submit your assignment. Read about it
here.
September 3 Minor updates to week 5 lecture slides are online.
August 28 Len is taking over comp226 from now until week 11.
Enjoy working with him, and Mike will be back near the end of semester.
August 26 There is now a program which you
can use to test your assignment 1 output against mine. Read about it
here.
August 23 Thanks to everyone who has submitted their first
Assignment 1 journal entry. There are still a few missing however, so
please be sure to get yours in if it's not in already. The first one
is due today (anytime today, so it being 3pm you still have time, but do
get it in!).
August 19 A last reminder: I will be collating the information
about what you have achieved this week. Please be sure to get all outstanding
work submitted before Wednesday.
August 18 Assignment 1 has been released. I have also extended
the deadline by a week to give you plenty of time (as long as you start right
away!). You will need to start thinking about the assignment now -- it's
not something that can be done quickly near the deadline. There are a variety
of different challenges built in, and each of them will take some creative
thought (and hence need some contemplation time). Start seriously now.
This is the
Unit Outline (also known
as the Study Guide) for the unit. It's not in vanilla html
(see the comment at the bottom of this page) so that it fits in with the
common formats that the University is using for such documents. Sorry.
You should read it carefully and refer to it as required.
In this table
you will find weekly tutorial exercises, practical exercises
and assignments. Please note that not all of these are available now --
some are still under construction, and if you're looking at them well ahead
of time then even if they're available they may still be subject to change.
Let me know if the table formats badly on your preferred mobile device
and I'll consider redrafting it as a simple list.
There are a wide range of resources
that you will need to make use of in studying computer architecture,
including reference materials and simulation software for ISEM.
Why this page (and each of the pages below it) is "vanilla" html:
The University
has cascading style sheets (css files) that provide common look, feel and
navigation to aid people in working with the University's webpages. I
presume that as an advanced 200-level student you can find all those pages.
I want you to
be focused on what you're studying while you're working on comp226 materials,
and I want you to be able to do that easily on mobile devices, reading raw
html under unix, or in whatever fonts and sizes you prefer. So from here on
down in your learning with me you'll see vanilla html. Learn well!
And why isn't this page in iLearn? The University has a Learning Management
System (LMS) that makes it easy for people who aren't computing professionals
(nor aspiring computing professionals)
to post and find things on the web. Again, neither you nor I fit into that
category, and I want you to be focused on what you're studying when you're
working on comp226. We want to do what's best for everyone's learning. Again,
learn well!