Syllabus: CS 503/591C Embedded Systems (Fall 2003)
Course Materials
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Course Web page:
http://www-all.cs.umass.edu/~fagg/classes/503
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Text 1: Design with PIC Microcontrollers, John B. Peatman, Prentice Hall, 1997, ASIN: 0137592590. Also
see the listing on PDX Books
- Text 2:
Designing Embedded Hardware, John Catsoulis, O'Reilly, 2003, ISBN: 0-595-00362-5
A note about books: you will not find them in the bookstore, but instead
will have to buy them from an on-line source. Also - we may find that
the Peatman book is a bit hard to come by; if this is the case, don't
panic (we will figure things out).
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Class Wiki: use for posting pointers to useful net
resources or for releasing designs and code.
- Class newsgroup
(nntp://news.oit.umass.edu/cmpsci.edlab.cs503): use for question/answers.
Other Useful Reference Material (at least one copy will be available in the lab)
Prerequisites
I will be assuming a familiarity with unix and that students will be able to jump into
C programming with little trouble.
Meeting Times and Location
The class will be held T/Th 2:30-3:45 in LGRC A339.
Formal labs will be held in M/W/F 12:20-1:10 in LGRT 214. Because this is a project-intensive
course, students should plan to spend much of their non-lecture time in the lab (this means 6-9
hrs/week). In order to accomodate this, we will be holding extended hours on a weekly basis.
NOTE: the lab will not open until Monday, September 8th.
Requirements and Grading
- Final Exam (20%)
- Project work (50%)
- Milestones: absolute deadlines for demonstrating some capability. These demonstrations
must be done in group sizes of no larger than 2. Points will be lost for failure to
meet a deadline.
- Widgets: specific project (of your design) that incorporates what we have been
learning in class in some creative way. Groups of any size may work together on a
widget. Points will be granted based on the difficulty and creativity of the widget
(and split evenly between the group members). Individuals should be demonstrating widgets
every 1-2 weeks.
- A small number of homework assignments and pop quizzes (20%)
- Participation: class (5%) and lab (5%)
You are expected to attend class regularly, read the assigned reading before class,
and participate in class discussions. The course will be graded on a curve.
Late Policies
This course covers a lot of material. Because late assignments will
seriously impact your ability to follow the next section of the
course, I strongly encourage you to be on time in turning them in. To
that end, late homework assignments will not be accepted (no exceptions). In addition,
failure to meet a milestone will result in a loss of points.
Cooperation and Cheating
Feel free to discuss homework and labs (both milestones and widgets)
with other members of the class, myself, or the TAs. However, do
not look at or copy another student's solution to a homework
assignment or a milestone (this is considered cheating). Widget "intellectual property"
(circuit designs or code) may be transfered freely between students (but only
by permission of the owner); the owner may negotiate payment (in terms
of points) for licensing the IP.
You may make use of the net as a reference as you are working on homework
and labs. However, downloading specific homework, milestone, or
widget solutions from the net is considered cheating.
If caught cheating, you will be reported to the University and you
will receive a failing grade for the course. For more details, please
see the Code
of Student Conduct.
Digital Music
We plan to have an MP3/OGG player in the lab (primarily for
demonstration purposes). You are welcome to install files for music
that you own. But - you may not copy files out of the lab
(i.e., no swapping of music files through our machines).
Copyright notice:
Many of the materials created for this course are the intellectual
property of Andrew Fagg.
This includes, but is not limited to, the
syllabus, lectures and course notes. Except to the extent not protected
by copyright law, any use, distribution or sale of such materials
requires the permission of the instructor. Please be aware that it is
a violation of university policy to reproduce, for distribution or sale,
class lectures or class notes, unless copyright has been explicitly waived
by the faculty member.
This page is online at http://www-all.cs.umass.edu/~fagg/classes/503/syllabus.html
Andrew H. Fagg
Last modified: Fri Sep 5 11:01:32 2003