CSCI 360

Spring, 2020

Organization of the Course

We have a web site (of which this is the main page) and a Blackboard site, which you can reach through this URL:

     https://webcourses.niu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp

Most of the information about the course can be found on the web pages. Blackboard will be used primarily for submitting homework assignments.

This class is section 1 and meets 2:00--3:15 on Monday and Wednesday in PM 253.


Contact Information for Both Sections

The instructor for section 1 is Harry Hutchins.

     Office:        PM 465
     E-Mail:        t90hch1@cs.niu.edu
     Office Hours:  1:00--4:00 Tuesday and Friday

The teaching assistant for section 1 is Marjo Feliciano.

     Office:        PM 356
     E-Mail:        Z1852942@students.niu.edu
     Office Hours:  8:00--10:00 on Tuesday and Friday and 2:30--4:30 on Thursday

The instructor for section 2 is Geoffrey Decker.

     Office:        PM 463
     E-Mail:        gdecker@niu.edu
     Office Hours:  10:00--11:00 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and
                    1:00--1:45 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday

The teaching assistant for section 2 is Samuel Thomas.

     Office:        PM 356
     E-Mail:        sthomas2@niu.edu
     Office Hours:  11:00--1:00 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday


Course Documents

We have a syllabus for the course.

We have a schedule of topics in the course.

As mentioned in the syllabus, you will need a document called the "System 370 Reference Summary" or "Yellow Card". You can find a PDF copy of it here. Print yourself a copy. (Here is a suggested way to do so, but feel free to print it some other way.) You will need to bring it to class when we have quizzes or tests.

There is a "Course Notes Book". It is available as MS Word file here. It contains a great deal of useful information.

We are using the ASSIST software. It sometimes produces error messages of its own. Here is the User's Guide for ASSIST. Part V of it lists the ASSIST error messages.

If you download your own copy of Vista TN3270, you will be able to use it without registering it for a period of time. Eventually you may need to register your copy. You can find the information needed to do this (name and code) on the Blackboard site under "Information". Please do not post this information anywhere else.

Some IBM manuals may also be useful and are listed as recommended texts:

Here is a brief guide to using the Marist facilities.

There are tutorials available on line about the use of ISPF. Here is one. You can also find Youtube videos on the subject.


Announcements

We will have lab training on Wednesday, January 15 in FRL (Faraday 231). The purpose of the lab training session is to make sure everyone can connect to the Marist site and also to do Assignment 0, which is very short.

In the course of the semester, you may eventually encounter an error message (IEC032I) indicating that the PDS you created in the lab training to hold your output files is full, preventing you from saving more files. If this happens, you can find instructions here on how to fix this.

The Department of Computer Science has recently adopted a set of rules for the administration of exams. (This is a PDF file.) You should read this document and pay attention to it. Misbehavior during an exam is likely to result in serious consequences.

We will have Quiz 1 on Monday, January 27, on arithmetic.

We will have Quiz 2 in Monday, February 3, on Add, encoding and decoding. You will need a copy of the Reference Summary.

We will have Quiz 3 on Monday, February 10 on X-instructions, Load and Load Address, branching and lieterals.

We will have Test 1 on Wednesday, February 19. We have a study guide and a set of practice problems for the exam.

We will have Quiz 4 on Wednesday, February 26, on Multiply, Divide and the extended branch mnemonics.

Results of Test 1: High = 92, Low = 34, Average = 71.1.

You can do corrections on your test and get some points back. Look at the test, figure out the answers to questions you missed, and write out the answers to the questions you missed on separate paper. Do not write on the original test. Turn in both of these on Monday, March 2. I will grade them and give you the average of the two scores.

We will have Quiz 5 on Wednesday, March 4, on internal subroutines, LM and STM.

We will have Quiz 6 on commonly used instructions, the storage of packed and zoned decimal numbers, and destructive overlap. The quiz will be posted here and be due on Blackboard on Monday, March 23 at 8:00 PM.

We will have Quiz 7 on zoned and packed decimal numbers and how they are stored, a couple of packed decimal instructions, and some encoding and decoding. The quiz will be posted here on Monday, March 30 by 4:00 PM and it will be due on Blackboard by Tuesday, March 31 at 4:00 PM. It will not be accepted late.

We will have Test 2 on Wednesday, April 8, also as a take-home test. There are two versions. If the numeric part of your Z-ID is an odd number, you should use Version A (a MS Word file) or Version A (a PDF file). If the numeric part of your Z-ID is an even number, you should use Version B (a MS Word file) or Version B (a PDF file). Be careful to use the correct version. There will be a penalty for using the wrong one. It will also be available on Blackboard. It will be due on Blackboard at 4:00 PM on Thursday, April 9. It will not be accepted late. We have a study guide for this test, a set of practice questions and an answer key for (most of) the practice questions (a plain text file).

Here is a statement about our present circumstances. We need to keep working and maintain perspective.

We will have Quiz 8 on packed decimal instructions. The quiz will be posted here on Wednesday, April 15 at 4:30 PM and it will be due by 4:30 PM on Thursday, April 16. It will not be accepted late.

We will have Quiz 9, which is on bitwise operations and shifts. (You may want to read about them.) You can find the quiz here (a MS Word file) or here (a PDF file) as of 4:30 PM Thursday, April 23, and it will be due on Blackboard by 7:30 PM on Friday, April 24. It will not be accepted late.

Our Final Exam will be managed in the same fashion as Test 2:


Notes

Amy Byrnes has written a nice set of notes on this material. You can find them here.

Here are some other notes:


Practice Work

Here are some practice problems. They are not homework assignments and will not be graded.

Binary arithmetic. Here are more practice problems with answers.

Arithmetic expressions.

Debugging.

Encoding and decoding.

Destructive overlap.

Packed decimal arithmetic. Here are more practice problems with answers.

Standard linkage.

Bit manipulation operations.


Homework

Please do the assignments in order as indicated. Do not try to work ahead to any great extent. If a due date is not listed, the assignment is still subject to change. Homework will be submitted through Blackboard.

Assignment 0 is the lab training exercise. It has no due date. Please do turn it in. We have sample output for the lab training exercise.

Written Homework 1 (a MS Word document) is due Monday, January 27.

Assignment 1 is due Saturday, February 1.

Assignment 2 is due Thursday, February 6. We have sample output for Assignment 2.

Written Homework 2 is due Monday, February 10.

Assignment 3 is due Monday, February 17. We have data for Assignment 3, and we have sample output for Assignment 3.

Assignment 4 is due Saturday, February 29. We have data for Assignment 4, and we have sample output for Assignment 4.

Assignment 5 is due Tuesday, March 24. We have data for Assignment 5, and we have sample output for Assignment 5.

Assignment 6 is due Saturday, April 4. We have data for Assignment 6, and we have sample output for Assignment 6.

Assignment 7 is for extra credit. This assignment is optional. If you do it, please turn it in by Friday, April 17. We have data for Assignment 7, and we have sample output for Assignment 7.

Assignment 8 is for extra credit. This assignment is optional. If you do it, please turn it in by Friday, April 24. We have data for Assignment 8. We have sample output for Assignment 8.

Assignment 9 is for extra credit. This assignment is optional. If you do it, please turn it in by Wednesday, April 29. We have a driver program for Assignment 9, and we have sample output for Assignment 9.

Extra-Credit Assignment is optional. If you do it, please turn it in by Thursday, April 30. We have data for the Extra-Credit Assignment, and we have sample output for the Extra-Credit Assignment.