COMP1521 Notices

COMP1521 19T3

Posted by Jashank Jeremy Monday 16 September 2019, 08:39:04 PM.

The web page for COMP1521 19T3 is located at:

https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs1521/19T3/

Provisional marks are out

Posted by Salil Kanhere Thursday 05 September 2019, 03:29:24 PM, last modified Thursday 05 September 2019, 03:32:32 PM.

The scaled final exam marks and provisional final marks are now visible. Note that, (lab/blog) bonus marks (if any) have been accounted for. A shout out to the following students for making the honour roll.

Zac Kologlu 100 (JEEZ !!)

Bryan Hutagalung 99

Arkie Owen 99

Michael Ellis 98

Benjamin Sho 98

A special shout out to all tutors for being so patient and helpful. A super special shout out to Jashank for basically being the engine room for this course.

I hope that you found the course to be useful. It was a pleasure to teach it. Good luck with Term 3 (sigh, it starts in just 10 days !!).

Final Exam Announcements

Posted by Salil Kanhere Tuesday 20 August 2019, 01:21:15 PM, last modified Tuesday 20 August 2019, 01:26:13 PM.

A reminder that the final exam will be held on Thursday, 22nd August in two sessions. You can find your session and seating allocation here . Please double check and make sure you go to the correct room.

Some information about what is and isn't available in the exam environment.

• Python is not available in the exam environment
• dcc is not available in the exam environment
• you may not bring calculators (use bc or xcalc )
• you do not have access to the COMP1521 web site
• you may not use your mobile phone or even have it on your desk

What is available (during the entire duration of the exam)

• C and MIPS reference material
• Unix man pages
• and, of course, spim , qtspim , gcc , gdb
• text editors : gedit, vim, nano, emacs
• xterminals (you can make as many as you like)
• check , exe and submit

What you should bring

• a pen or pencil
• your student card

Good luck everyone !! May the force be with you.

Exam Consult

Posted by Salil Kanhere Monday 19 August 2019, 02:28:13 PM.

I will be available tomorrow (Tuesday, 20/8) morning from 10am - 11am for exam consults in Room 612, Level 6, K17 (CSE).

Week 11 classes; help sessions; exam consults + seating; myExperience

Posted by Jashank Jeremy Monday 12 August 2019, 01:05:07 PM.

Hello! A quick update on a variety of topics.

• In week 11 : Monday tutorials are still on (as you know if you already had yours), and include the practice prac exam.

  There are no classes on Tuesday . These were added by Timetabling following the power outage in week 4, but as our Friday lecture was just delayed, and our Friday tutorials and labs all went ahead, we don't need this slot. (You're welcome to show up, of course, but there won't be any course staff there.)

• Assignment 2 is due Real Soon Now. We've got a help session tonight from 4–7pm in brass lab , to help with those last-minute bugs.

• We'll have some pre-exam consultations later this week and early next week; we'll have some more information on those soon.

• Your final exam session and seating allocation is now available. We'll send this link out again closer to the final exam, which is on Thursday, 22 August 2019 , but please check your allocations now , and let us know urgently if there's any issues.

• myExperience is UNSW's course and teaching evaluation scheme, which provides feedback to us about how we've done, and how we can improve the course and the teaching experience. Let us know what worked, what didn't, by going to https://myexperience.unsw.edu.au/ by this Friday, 15 August .

  Only about 20% of you have filled out the survey, so if you haven't yet done so, you should do it now. Responses are anonymous, and we won't get to see them until after your marks are submitted. We'd love to know what you thought of the course!

Assignment 1 Marks are ready

Posted by Salil Kanhere Friday 09 August 2019, 06:00:30 PM.

Assignment 1 marks are now visible. So are marks for all quizzes. All lab marks should be visible by next week (if not already).

Recall that of the 9 marks for the assignment, 7 marks were for for auto-tests run on a range of boards and board sizes, 1 mark was for comments and 1 mark was for readable code. We will try to release the test scripts next week for you to replicate the tests.

Week 10: Grand Finale

Posted by Salil Kanhere Monday 05 August 2019, 11:21:44 AM.

There will be one last lecture this week during which we will cover Inter-Process Communication: Pipes and Message Queues followed by a course review.

Jashank will run an optional lecture on debugging on Thursday, 8th August from 11am - 1pm in CLB 7 . He will go over gdb and QtSpim . This should be very useful for your final exam.

There will be a Practice Prac Exam in the labs in Week 10. It will run for about two hours and will make use of the final exam environment. You will be required to solve one small MIPS and one small C exercise. No books, phones, bags, etc. at your desk. Treat it like the Final Exam. It is worth double the marks compared to other labs.

Quiz 6 is due by 08:59 am on Thursday, 8th August.

The second assignment is due by 08:59 am on Tuesday, 13th August . Go to one of the help sessions this week if you need help. Details are on the website.

Please complete the MyExperience Feedback for the course. Your feedback is useful for improving future course offerings. Let us know what worked, what didn't. The survey will close on 15th August.

Quiz 6

Posted by Salil Kanhere Thursday 01 August 2019, 08:30:09 PM.

Quiz 6 is out and due by 08:59 am on Thursday, 8th August (irrespective of your lab enrolment).

Registering your preference for the COMP1521 Final Exam Session

Posted by Salil Kanhere Wednesday 31 July 2019, 09:26:53 AM.

The COMP1521 Final Exam will be held Thursday 22nd August in two sessions:

• morning 09:15-12:30
• afternoon 12:20-16:10

You will be allocated one of this sessions. You can register a preference for morning or afternoon exam session: here .

This is optional. If you don't really care which session you get - please don't enter a preference.

As many students as possible will be given their preference but it may not be possible to give all students their preference.

Students with a clashing exam are automatically allocated a place in the appropriate session . You do not have to register a preference . The above link should show you as already allocated to the non-clashing session.

Student who have DSU-registered special exam conditions have been pre-allocated to the afternoon session to allow conditions to be met. The above link will show any extra time allowances - other conditions are not shown at the above link but will be met. Email meicheng@cse.unsw.edu.au if you are a DSU-registered student who needs to attend the morning session and we'll see what arrangements are possible.

Students with a religious or other major reason for attending a particular session should indicate a preference using the link above ASAP. If when allocations are released you are not allocated to the session you need - you will be able to contact us and we'll ensure you get the allocation you need if you have a religious or similarly important reason.

You have until end of Week 9 to enter a session preference. Session allocations will be released by end of Week 11.

Students in the morning session will be given a lab to go straight to.

Students in the afternoon session will be directed to a class room.

You can not leave the morning session early.

You can not attempt the afternoon session if you arrive late.

Please arrive well before the session start times - Sydney public transport services can experience delays or cancellations.

Week 9: Networks + Concurrency

Posted by Salil Kanhere Monday 29 July 2019, 05:01:34 PM.

This week we will focus on Networks in the first lecture, tutorials and labs. We will also cover Concurrency in the second lecture.

Quiz 5 is due by 08:59 am on Thursday, 1st August (irrespective of your lab enrolment).

The second assignment is due by 08:59 am on Tuesday, 13th August (irrespective of your lab enrolment). Special help sessions have been organised in Weeks 9 & 10 to help you with assignment related questions. Details are on the website. Please avail of these if you need help. Good luck !!

Week 8: Process + Device Management

Posted by Salil Kanhere Tuesday 23 July 2019, 08:57:58 PM.

This week, we will focus on Process + Device Management in the Lectures, Labs and Tutorials.

Lab 8 work is due by 08:59 am on Monday, 29th July if you go to a lab that falls on Tue-Fri. If you go to a Monday lab, then your work is due by 08:59am on Thursday, 1st August. .

Quiz 5 is out and is due by 08:59 am on Thursday, 1st August (irrespective of your lab enrolment). Quiz 4 marks should be visible soon.

The second assignment is due by 08:59 am on Tuesday, 13th August (irrespective of your lab enrolment). Special help sessions have been organised in Weeks 8, 9 & 10 to help you with assignment related questions. Details are on the website. Please avail of these if you need help. Good luck !!

Assignment 2 released

Posted by Jashank Jeremy Wednesday 17 July 2019, 11:12:01 PM.

Hello! Because we know how much you love assignments, Assignment 2 has now been released. You'll be implementing (in C) a memory allocator, like our good friends malloc(3) and free(3) . It'll be due on Tuesday, 13th August. Check out the specification and ask questions on WebCMS3: https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP1521/19T2/resources/28581

Here's hoping you find it heaps of fun! ~j

Week 7: Memory Management

Posted by Salil Kanhere Monday 15 July 2019, 09:38:41 AM.

This week, we will focus on the Memory Management in the Lectures, Labs and Tutorials.

Lab 7 work is due by 08:59 am on Monday, 22nd July if you go to a lab that falls on Tue-Fri. If you go to a Monday lab, then your work is due by 08:59am on Thursday, 25th July .

Quiz 4 is out and is due by 08:59 am on Thursday, 18th July (irrespective of your lab enrolment). Quiz 3 marks have been released.

The assignment is due by 08:59 am on Wednesday, 17th July (irrespective of your lab enrolment). We STRONGLY recommend that you test your code on a CSE machine before submitting to ensure that there are no unpleasant surprises. We also recommend that you test your code using different board configurations (than the two supplied to you). You can find a script that will test your program on randomly generated boards at the following link on the forum.

Finally, you are ONLY required to submit prog.s. Do not include any boards with this file.

Have a great week ahead and good luck with the assignment.

Week 6: File System

Posted by Salil Kanhere Tuesday 09 July 2019, 09:58:44 AM.

This week, we will focus on the Unix File System in the Lectures, Labs and Tutorials.

Lab 6 work is due by 08:59 am on Monday, 15th July if you go to a lab that falls on Tue-Fri. If you go to a Monday lab, then your work is due by 08:59am on Thursday, 18th July .

Quiz 4 is out and is due by 08:59 am on Thursday, 18th July (irrespective of your lab enrolment). Quiz 3 marks should be shortly.

The assignment is due by 08:59 am on Wednesday, 17th July (irrespective of your lab enrolment). If you have not made a start on it then we strongly recommend that you do so ASAP .

Special help sessions have been organised to help you with assignment related questions. Details are on the website. Please avail of these if you need help.

Have a great week ahead and good luck with the assignment.

Week 5: MIPS - The Final Chapter

Posted by Salil Kanhere Monday 01 July 2019, 05:49:01 PM.

This week, we will complete our deep dive into MIPS assembly programming. In particular we will focus on functions, arrays, structs and some final bits and pieces.

Lab 5 and Tutorial 5 questions are online. Lab 5 work is due by 08:59 am on Monday, 8th July if you go to a lab that falls on Tue-Fri. If you go to a Monday lab, then your work is due by 08:59am on Thursday, 11th July .

Quiz 3 is due by 08:59 am on Thursday, 4th July (irrespective of your lab enrolment)

The assignment spec is due by 08:59 am on Wednesday, 17th July (irrespective of your lab enrolment). If you have not made a start on it then we strongly recommend that you do so ASAP .

Special help sessions have been organised in Weeks 5& 6 to help you with assignment related questions. Details are on the website. Please avail of these if you need help.

Have a great week ahead and good luck with the assignment.

Stream B Lecture: Power Outage

Posted by Salil Kanhere Friday 28 June 2019, 04:36:14 PM.

Due to the power outage today's (Friday, Week 4) lecture for Stream B was cancelled. No need to worry. Zainab will continue where she left off with the Week 4 content in your next lecture on Wednesday (3rd July). This means Streams A and B are now back in sync !!

Power outage: tutes and labs still on

Posted by Jashank Jeremy Friday 28 June 2019, 12:56:58 PM.

Hello! There's a power outage across parts of UNSW at the moment, but we won't let that get in the way of a good time. Tutes and labs are still on this afternoon; only my tutorial (usually in Mathews 313) has moved to the K17 seminar room.

We'll have updates about today's missed lecture for 1UGB later today.

Week 4: MIPS, MIPS and more MIPS

Posted by Salil Kanhere Monday 24 June 2019, 05:01:51 PM, last modified Tuesday 25 June 2019, 10:12:15 AM.

Week 4 content is now online. We will be exclusively focusing on MIPS assembly programming this week.

A reminder that your lab 4 work is due by 08:59 am on Monday, 1st July if you go to a lab that falls on Tue-Fri. If you go to a Monday lab, then your work is due by 08:59am on Thursday, 4th July .

Quiz 3 is out and is due by 08:59 am on Thursday, 4th July (irrespective of your lab enrolment)

The assignment spec has been out for a week and is due by 08:59 am on Wednesday, 17th July (irrespective of your lab enrolment).

A treasure trove of MIPS resources are available on the Documentation page of the website. We would strongly recommend that you browse through these.

A number of additional help sessions have been arranged to answer your questions about the assignment starting Week 4. These are in addition to the regular weekly help sessions that run on Tuesdays and Fridays. Details are on the Help Sessions page of the website.

Finally, there is a poll requesting feedback on the pace of the lectures. We would appreciate your input.

Enjoy !

Assignment 1 released

Posted by Jashank Jeremy Wednesday 19 June 2019, 11:23:17 AM.

Hello! Assignment 1 is here. Check out the specification and ask questions on WebCMS3: https://webcms3.cse.unsw.edu.au/COMP1521/19T2/resources/28153

We'll be starting to talk about assembly language this week in lectures and next week in tutorials and labs, so don't be too alarmed by the assembly in the assignment at this point -- read and understand what's going on in the C first.

Here's hoping you find this an instructional experience! ~j

Quiz 2 Deadline Extended

Posted by Salil Kanhere Tuesday 18 June 2019, 02:51:42 PM.

We have extended the deadline for Quiz 2 to 08.59 am Thursday, 20th June.

A Few Updates

Posted by Salil Kanhere Tuesday 11 June 2019, 10:09:56 AM.

The schedule for the help sessions is up. Check the "Help Sessions" link on the web page.

Students enrolled in the Monday labs will have till 08:59 am on Thursday to submit your lab work. So, Lab 2 will be due on 08:59am, Thursday 20th June. Students enrolled in Tuesday-Friday labs must submit their lab work by 08:59am on the following Monday. So the Lab 2 deadline is 08:59am, Monday, 17th June.

Please use cs1521@cse.unsw.edu.au for all course related emails and not our personal addresses. Better yet, post your questions on WebCMS.

Week 2 coming up + Holiday on Monday

Posted by Salil Kanhere Friday 07 June 2019, 05:21:11 PM.

Monday, 10th June is a public holiday.

A make-up lecture is scheduled for Stream A students on Monday, Week 10 (5th August).

Similarly, those enrolled in Monday labs/tutes will have a make-up lab/tute on Monday, Week 11 (12th August).

From now on, for COMP1521, think of Tuesday to be the start of the week and Monday(+1) to be the end of the week. So Week 2 starts on Tuesday, 4th June and ends of Monday, 10th June and so on.

Week 2 content will be up on the website shortly.

Wish you all a great long weekend !!

COMP1521 is ready to roll !!

Posted by Salil Kanhere Thursday 30 May 2019, 05:54:37 PM.

Dear COMP1521 Students,

Welcome to COMP1521, 19T2 !!

The course website is here - http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs1521

Tutes and Labs start in Week 1 . The exercises are primarily revising C concepts and should be straightforward for most of you.

We have two lecture streams - Stream A: Monday 14:00 - 16:00 (Burrows) + Thursday 11:00 - 13:00 (CLB 7). Stream B : Wednesday 16:00 - 18:00 (CLB 7) + Friday 11:00 - 13:00 (Matthews A). Please attend the lecture for the stream you have enrolled as we are almost at full capacity.

There are a handful of open spots in the course, so if any of your friends are waiting to enrol then get them to do so quickly before we are packed to the rafters !!

Please read the course outline carefully (yes it is long) and make sure that you are clear about how the course will be run.

See you all next week.