EE 4720 - What's New

8 December 2004, 16:13:26 CST
Linked Final Exam Solution to the Homework & Exams page.

8 December 2004, 14:21:40 CST
For those who would like their opinion on the best alias heard, see this poll and also this topic.

8 December 2004, 11:44:38 CST
Grading Update VII:Course Grades Ready
No one failed. (Sorry about ruining the suspense.) If that's good enough, have a great winter break, otherwise click here.

And now to the important stuff. Our jury of internationally recognized aliasists have come to a decision. The jury noted that there were some good putting-my-grade-in-context aliases, such as “My drop test,” “need sleep,” and “No idea.” There were the usual nicknamish aliases, but the jury decided that the award should go to the most cryptic (to the jury anyway) and most non-sequitorish (if that term can be applied to an alias) alias: “Onions are Bad”. Congratulations. Many in the jury will be spending all winter break wondering what that means or perhaps embarrassed at missing a common expression.

This is the last grading update. A solution to the final will be posted later today. Anyone getting that empty no-more-computer-architecture feeling can go to the references page and print the implementation descriptions next to many of the ISAs. Also, it's not too late to register for the graduate follow-on to this course EE 7700-3, Advanced Computer Implementation.

7 December 2004, 17:37:33 CST
Grading Update VI:Final Exam Grades Ready The average is 56.9, the range [30,88]. Curious about your grade? Then click here.

Course grades and the Best Alias Award™ will be posted some time tomorrow. The next grading update will be posted by 12:00 tomorrow, or earlier.

7 December 2004, 16:27:06 CST
Grading Update V: Problems 1-4 graded, Problem 5 partially graded. Test scores will be posted roughly in one hour (could be 30 minutes, could be 2 hours). The next grading update will be in ... could be 30 minutes, could be 2 hours. For those exercising your browser's or RSS aggregator's refresh button, hang in there.

7 December 2004, 12:14:20 CST
Grading Update IV: Problem 2 partially graded. Grading should be complete by tonight, course grades will be available no earlier than tomorrow. The next grading update will be posted at about 16:30.

6 December 2004, 18:06:45 CST
Grading Update III: Problem 2 grading just started. The next grading update will be posted tomorrow at about 12:00.

6 December 2004, 15:48:08 CST
Grading Update II: Problem 1 graded, most did well. The quality of the aliases is also high, that should make the Best Alias Award [tm] judging difficult. Grades will probably be available tomorrow. The next grading update will be posted about 18:00 today.

6 December 2004, 10:44:55 CST
Removed outdated textbook resource link.

6 December 2004, 9:58:32 CST
Linked Final Exam to the Homework & Exams page.

Grading Update I: Grading will start soon. Final exam grades will be available late today at the earliest. Course grades will be available tomorrow at the earliest. The next grading update will be posted at about 16:00 today.

3 December 2004, 11:50:49 CST
Linked an updated Final Exam Review to the lectures page.

2 December 2004, 14:52:26 CST
Don't forget to complete course evaluations through your PAWS account. The deadline is the last day of classes.

30 November 2004, 16:04:30 CST
Linked Spring 2004 Final Exam Solution to the Homework & Exams page.

30 November 2004, 12:32:04 CST
Linked Midterm 2 Solution to the Homework & Exams page.

30 November 2004, 9:15:59 CST
Linked Final Exam Review, Set 12 - Branch Prediction, and Set 13 - Memory and Caches to the lectures page.

The extra class will be held tonight at 18:30 in Room 117 EE Building. Please look at and try to solve Spring 2004 Final Exam Problem 1. Material in Set 12 - Branch Prediction pages 20-23 will be helpful. (In the test problem the ID register map is backed up.)

29 November 2004, 13:22:32 CST
The extra class scheduled for Tuesday is optional. However, students are responsible for all material in the dynamically scheduled study guide and the cache study guide plus all other material mentioned in the syllabus.

29 November 2004, 8:47:25 CST
A makeup class will be held Tuesday, 30 November at ~~17:00~~ 18:30 in Room 117 EE Building, our semi-plush but over-air-conditioned conference room.

24 November 2004, 10:11:48 CST
Linked Set 10, Dynamic Scheduling to the lectures page.

19 November 2004, 10:30:58 CST
Linked Set 11, Superscalar and VLIW to the lectures page.

14 November 2004, 13:09:29 CST
Created a discussion topic for suggestions on how to improve the exam or preparation for the exam.

14 November 2004, 12:20:42 CST
Grading Update 5: MIDTERM 2 EXAM GRADES READY. The average was 43.9, the range [17,83]. Remembering that the lowest exam grade will be dropped click here.

13 November 2004, 14:54:46 CST
Grading Update 4:Problems 1 and 2(a) graded. For problem 2(a) I forgot to mention that the shift instructions should work correctly even when no bypassing is needed. :-) The next grading update will be tomorrow about 12:00, grading should be completed by then. Grading Update^TM is seeking corporate sponsors. Take advantage of this unique placement opportunity.

13 November 2004, 11:59:32 CST
Grading Update 3:Problem 1 almost completely graded. It was not the unqualified disaster that many assumed. At the low end grades clustered around 20. Better answers were in the 30's, the top score was 43. The middle instruction was a jal, some got that. No one got the correct target, 0x4444, and no one realized that the fill-in block was the jal return address, 0x1010. The next grading update will be posted by 16:00. Grades will be available no earlier than tomorrow. Grading Update^TM, keeping you occupied during the wait. Only at EE 4720.

12 November 2004, 18:36:56 CST
Grading Update 2:Not much graded yet. The next grading update will be posted tomorrow at about 12:00.

12 November 2004, 13:05:58 CST
Linked Midterm Exam 2 to the Homework & Exams page.

12 November 2004, 12:05:05 CST
Grading Update 1: Grading will start later this afternoon and will be finished over the weekend. The earliest that grades will be available is Saturday. The midterm will be posted later this afternoon and the next grading update will be posted by 20:00 tonight. Grading Update [tm], an exclusive feature of EE 4720.

10 November 2004, 13:02:56 CST
Updated the Statically Scheduled MIPS Study Guide. Also created a discussion topic for the Midterm 2.0.

10 November 2004, 9:49:31 CST
Linked Midterm Exam 2.0 Review to the lectures page. An update to the statically scheduled study guide will be posted later today. The update will include a few more problems (from recent exams) and minor changes to wording. (So there is no harm in using the older study guide for now.)

8 November 2004, 10:23:58 CST
Linked Set 8, Interrupts and Set 9, Long-Latency (Floating Point) Operations to the lectures page.

5 November 2004, 18:27:48 CST
For those who want more, added a link to EE 7700-3, Advanced Computer Implementation to the course home page. This course covers what is, 7700-3 will cover what might be (and some more of what is too).

5 November 2004, 12:01:31 CST
Linked Homework 3 Solution to the Homework & Exams page.

29 October 2004, 12:57:23 CDT
Second midterm exam date set to Friday, 12 November 2004.

27 October 2004, 9:50:45 CDT
Homework 3 assigned, due Wednesday, 3 November 2004. Discuss.

25 October 2004, 15:35:39 CDT
Looking for a computer architecture job? Consider this opening at Intel.

24 October 2004, 15:51:50 CDT
Linked Midterm 1 Solution to the Homework & Exams page.

24 October 2004, 14:21:54 CDT
Grading Update 5:MIDTERM EXAM GRADES READY. The range was [22,82] with an average of 50.9. To find out where your grade lies (or just to see the distribution) click here.

24 October 2004, 11:49:29 CDT
Grading Update 4: Problems 1-4(a) graded. In Problem 4(a) a surprising number of students did not notice the word “subset”. Grades should be available later today. The next grading update will be posted by 17:00 or whenever the grades are ready.

23 October 2004, 16:16:05 CDT
Grading Update 3: Problems 1, 2, and 3 graded. The solutions to Problem 1 looked good. Problem 2 was not as easy as I thought. The answers for instructions c.lt.s, c.gt.d (oops), and bc1t were supposed to discuss whether FP condition code registers are retained or, like slt, the FP compares write a 0 or 1 into an integer register. Only 3 points was allocated to those instructions so don't worry if you didn't get it. As stated earlier, two correctly solved Problem 3. It looked like many had trouble understanding what the given code did. If I realized I would have explained it during class. Anyway, the posted midterm now has a longer explanation, for the benefit of future generations of EE 4720 students.

Grading should be complete tomorrow. The next grading update—but not necessarily the grades—will be posted by 12:00 tomorrow.

23 October 2004, 11:28:43 CDT
Grading Update 2: No further grading done. (Excuse: commenting on presentation slides for a student defending a week from Tuesday.) Grading will resume soon. Grades will be posted tomorrow at the earliest. The next grading update will be posted by about 17:00 today.

22 October 2004, 17:43:58 CDT
Grading Update 1: Problem 1 partially graded. Most (so far) got the answer mostly correct.

Peeked at the notorious Problem 3, only two got the right answer (or close to it). See this discussion for hints on Problem 3 (for those who consider solving the problem post-exam to be some kind of triumph).

The next grading update will be posted by tomorrow 12:00 (noon).

22 October 2004, 12:00:04 CDT
Linked Midterm Exam 1.0 to the Homework & Exams page.

Grading Update 0: Grading will start this afternoon but grades will be posted no earlier than Saturday. The next grading update will be posted by 18:00 this afternoon.

19 October 2004, 12:48:35 CDT
Linked Midterm Exam Review to the lectures page. We'll go over this in class on Wednesday. To help prepare for the test look at the Fall 2003 Midterm Exam, we may go over this on class on Wednesday.

19 October 2004, 12:26:58 CDT
Linked the Homework 1 solution to the Homework & Exams page. Midterm review notes will be posted later today.

18 October 2004, 9:56:20 CDT
Midterm exam study suggestion: Add comments to the main and runsort routines in the homework (assignment or solution). The comments should describe not what an instruction does, but how what role it plays in testing the program. For example,

 # Comment below bad because it does not help in understanding how
 # the program tests the sort routine.  Explaining what a load does
 # is not helpful because that's something the reader should already know.
 lw $a1, 4($s0)   # Load a1 with word at address $s0 + 4.

 # Comment below good.
 # Load address of array to be sorted in iteration after the current one.
 # If that address is zero, there are no more arrays, so exit the loop.
 lw $a1, 4($s0)

15 October 2004, 12:01:53 CDT
The midterm exam, as mentioned earlier, will be on Friday 22 October 2004. There will be a second midterm exam several weeks later (date to be determined) which will cover implementation topics. Implementation material will only lightly be covered in next Friday's exam. Each exam will have a half-class review.

13 October 2004, 12:14:12 CDT
Linked Set 6, Unpipelined and Pipelined MIPS Implementations, to the lectures page.

The midterm exam date has been set to Friday, 22 October 2004 (in class). The exam will cover everyhing up to and including the MIPS implmentation material started today. (Discuss)

11 October 2004, 16:24:16 CDT
Linked Homework 2 Solution to the Homework & Exams page.

11 October 2004, 10:22:39 CDT
Linked Set 4 Control Transfer and Other Instructions to the lectures page.

5 October 2004, 17:21:23 CDT
The forums are available again, but all old posts and user accounts were lost. I'll be checking for posts up until about 23:00 (with a break for the debate).

Homework will automatically be copied some time after midnight by the TA-bot.

4 October 2004, 22:11:40 CDT
Homework deadline extended to Tuesday, about midnight. The course Web pages, obviously, are back however the forums won't be available until tomorrow.

3 October 2004, 12:42:49 CDT
Added tips for MIPS programming and SPIM to the procedures page. Also, the homework will be copied from your account some time after midnight on Monday night.

1 October 2004, 12:31:46 CDT
At some point the factorial stack usage example program will be linked to a special code examples Web page, but for now just use the link above.

30 September 2004, 18:23:58 CDT
SPIM now runs on ECE Linux systems. Just log into an ECE Linux system, no additional setup is required. The machines are in the undergraduate workstation lab, or for remote access connect to one of these (some machines may not be available): titan.ee.lsu.edu nereid.ee.lsu.edu carrier.ee.lsu.edu agent.ee.lsu.edu session.ee.lsu.edu filter.ee.lsu.edu simplex.ee.lsu.edu crash.ee.lsu.edu port.ee.lsu.edu rip.ee.lsu.edu residue.ee.lsu.edu access.ee.lsu.edu

If you want to run xspim on some other Linux system feel free to copy the executable (/home/classes/ee4720/com/lbin/xspim) and Emacs initialization files (.emacs and /home/classes/ee4720/com/lisp/asm-class.el)

30 September 2004, 9:24:37 CDT
Corrected Set 2.7: ISA Family Overview posted. The error was in the mtc1 instruction, the floating-point register is second. That is:

         mtc1 $f0, $t0  # Wrong
         mtc1 $t0, $f0  # Correct

29 September 2004, 16:28:18 CDT
Note for Homework 2: to run the xspim simulator from within Emacs, press F9. The xspim window should pop up.

29 September 2004, 13:04:14 CDT
Deadline for Homework 2 extended to Monday, 4 October 2004. (Discuss) Please start early or thank you for already starting.

Note: Material on floating point (MIPS and RISC) can be found in Set 2.7: ISA Family Overview.

27 September 2004, 14:46:08 CDT
Set up a forum (bulletin board) for discussion of EE 4720 topics, including homework assignments. You need to set up an account to post (not the same as your Sun computer accounts). Use your name, nickname, or something anonymous.

27 September 2004, 12:54:20 CDT
Linked Set 3: Instruction Set Design to the lectures page.

25 September 2004, 12:24:30 CDT
For those who wish to forgo the camaraderie and unique atmosphere of our undergraduate workstation laboratory remote access is available. For those who have an X-Server and SSH client on their computer and know how to use them, just log into sol.ece.lsu.edu. Others might find it easier to remotely log into an ECE Windows computer using their PAWS account (look for ECE Software from home link and FAQ on this page.), start X-Win32 (cancel or ignore startup dialog), start SSH Secure Shell Client, turn on X11 Tunneling in the settings dialog, and then “quick connect” to sol.ece.lsu.edu.

23 September 2004, 10:15:42 CDT
Homework 2 assigned, due 1 October 2004. Please start early.

22 September 2004, 16:31:52 CDT
Homework 2 will be posted tomorrow. It will be worth the wait.

20 September 2004, 10:32:25 CDT
Linked Set 2.7: ISA Family Overview to the lectures page.

14 September 2004, 17:14:40 CDT
LSU will be closed Wednesday and Thursday, 15-16 September 2004 due to the threat of extremely dangerous Hurricane Ivan. (The first link above is the 16:00 Tuesday advisory, the second link has the latest advisories.) If LSU reopens as planned Homework 1 will be due on Friday.

14 September 2004, 15:42:41 CDT
Here is some clarification for Homework 1, Problem 2 part (a): For the second bullet point, if processor X's clock frequency is twice as high as the SPARC64 then assume its score (SPEC Cint2000 peak) is twice as high as the SPARC64 (and plot the assumed score on your graph). That's what was meant be scaling.

When answering the question “What conclusions can be drawn...”, please don't just describe what the graph looks like, or if you do, keep it brief. The question is asking about how different clock frequencies and decode widths might have their impact on performance. Yes, it's a bit early in the semester to be asking such a question but you should know enough at this point to come up with a decent answer. Think about issues such as efficiency and differences in ISAs and compilers.

10 September 2004, 19:21:33 CDT
Added some implementations (and hopefully not too much garish coloring) to the references page. This might be helpful for Homework 1.

10 September 2004, 10:27:46 CDT
Homework 1 assigned, due Wednesday, 15 September 2004.

8 September 2004, 11:51:20 CDT
Linked Set 2.5: MIPS Overview to the lectures page.

2 September 2004, 11:55:21 CDT
Linked Set 2: CPU Performance Equation and Benchmarks, and Set 2.1: Optimization Notes, to the lectures page.

25 August 2004, 15:30:27 CDT
Added TA information to home page. (Ankush Agarwal).

22 August 2004, 11:44:32 CDT
(Finally) updated Web pages for Fall 2004 semester. Welcome!

Spring 2004
Spring 2004 What's New

David M. Koppelman - koppel@ece.lsu.edu

Modified 20 Dec 2004 9:07 (1507 UTC)