WEB SITE FOR DIGITAL LOGIC, CS W3823 01F


This is a course offered by the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University.


COURSE EVALUATION SURVEY

Now is the time to go online to help evaluate this course. The URL for this is: http://www.esurveys.columbia.edu/wces/ Click here to get there

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OMBUDSPEOPLE

Students are urged to let the instructor know about any problems they are having with the course, criticisms, suggestions for improvement, etc. They can do so by such means as talking to the instructor, sending him email, or using the class newsgroup. Those who, for whatever reason, wish to communicate some thoughts anonymously, can now do so by using one of the class ombudspeople.

These are members of the class who have volunteered to pass on to the instructor any suggestions or complaints that you convey to them, and they will do so without identifying the source. They are:


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Course Instructor: Professor Stephen H. Unger


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Teaching Assistants

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Supplementary Reading. NOT Required

General: Randy Katz, Contemporary Logic Design, Benjamin/Cummings, 1994.

Electronics: T. M. Frederiksen, Intuitive Digital Computer Basics, McGraw-Hill, 1988.

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What is this course about?

Digital logic is about the design of logic circuits, which are the guts of digital computers, communications controllers, digital controllers, and related systems. A brief introduction to electric circuits, including a simple explanation of how transistors work is included. We will then develop various tools, such as Boolean algebra, Karnaugh maps, and flow tables to show how complex systems can be described precisely and then synthesized efficiently using the above mentioned gates as building blocks. Both combinational and sequential logic circuits will be treated.

Applications will include the design of storage elements, registers, adders, and counters. Methods for dealing with races, hazards and metastability will be discussed. Many of the concepts introduced and applied in this course will be pertinent to the design of digital systems as a whole, and to the design of software. Although digital logic is not a prerequisite to our computer organization course (CS W3824), it is recommended that students take 3823 BEFORE, or concurrent with 3824.


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HOMEWORK: What's it for? Why do it? How much does it count?

There are people--very very few (I can't think of any offhand)--who can absorb technical knowledge almost instantly, and can apply it immediately with virtually no effort. Everybody else, even the brightest people, has to read and study explanations and play with the ideas involved, trying them out on examples.

Homework questions are designed to give people the practice necessary to ensure that they really understand what is presented in class, and to develop a facility for applying that knowledge. Doing homework regularly reinforces what is learned in class and via reading, and develops one's ability to use this knowledge to solve problems.

Exams are designed to measure the extent to which students have mastered the subject matter of courses. Since homework facilitates this mastery, it follows that higher exam grades are correlated with doing homework. So the reason for doing homework is to LEARN THE COURSE MATERIAL. In this course, the homework grade counts for only a small part of the course grade, 15%. The reason for this is to minimize the temptation to cheat. Homework grades should NOT be thought of as REWARDS for doing work. The only reason for homework grades is to give students a little added incentive to do the homework--an incentive that perceptive students do not need.

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Homework Policy


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Policy on Collaboration

Teamwork and cooperation among engineers and scientists is very important. Students should get into the habit by helping one another master the subjects they are learning. For example, studying in pairs or groups can be very helpful. Answering one another's questions, sharing information about resources, such as books or reprints, are all good things to do. In some courses (not this one) there are projects in which students work in teams.

But there are special situations in which collaboration is NOTproper. While it is all right to help a classmate understand the meaning of a homework question, it is NOT all right to help a classmate generate a solution (or of course for you to obtain help in solving a homework problem). Copying work on an exam from another is also of course improper (as would be the surreptitious use of disallowed information sources during an exam).

Improper collaboration or other forms of cheating can result in unpleasant interviews with a dean, followed by punishment that can go as far as expulsion from the university.


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About Exams


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MIDTERM EXAMINATION Computer Science W3823	October 18, 2001
                       INSTRUCTIONS
 
1. Write your name NOW  on this sheet.  Check to see that all 12
   problems are in your set.
2. Do all 12 problems, working on the question sheets;  use the BACKS
   of previous pages for scrap work.
3. Show all work, including brief  explanations where appropriate.
4. Write legibly and place your answers in the answer boxes.
5. No books, notes, or electronic aids are to be used.
6. Unless you never make mistakes, use a pencil rather than a pen.  Do
   not  write in red.
7. Read each question carefully before answering it.  Don't do more
   than you are asked to do.  Allocate your time intelligently: Solve
   the problems that seem easy before attacking the harder ones.
   ............
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Why attend lectures?

Reading the relevant parts of the text and doing the homework is essential in order to understand the subject matter of the course. But everything will be much harder if you skip lectures. Asking questions at lectures, making comments, and hearing the questions and comments of classmates, along with the responses, deepens your understanding and gets you past difficult points much more easily. Students who skip lectures soon start to fall behind and then have difficulty in catching up, because of the connections between the topics. Examples used in the lectures are generally different from those in the text, and often explanations given in class are more detailed. Material not in the text is sometimes introduced in lectures (but also note that not everything in the text is included in lectures.)


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