University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
                Department of Computer Science

                SPRING 1994 COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT

            COMP 190-092: Topics in Computer Science
                     (Computer Architecture)
                 Tuesday,Thursday, 3:30-4:45pm
                       Sitterson Hall 014

INSTRUCTOR: William Mark
     
PREREQUISITE:  COMP 120: Computer Organization
               This is a hard prerequisite, not a corequisite.
     
PURPOSE: The course will cover the fundamentals of computer
architecture.  It will also cover areas of the implementation
of architectures relevant to contemporary computer architectures. 

TEXTBOOK:  Hennessy and Patterson, "Computer Organization & Design: The
   Hardware/Software Interface". 
 
TOPICS: performance measurement, instruction sets, computer
arithmetic, CPU implementation issues, caches, I/O, and parallel
processors.  While covering this material, the course will attempt to
provide an understanding of some of the trade-offs involved when
designing a computer architecture, and the impact that changes in
technology can have on these trade-offs. 

At the end of the course, students will understand how computers work
at a fairly fundamental level, and of some decisions that a computer
architect faces when designing a new system. 

ASSIGNMENTS/GRADING: There will be a mixture of conventional homework
assignments and programming assigments.  Tests will consist of one
midterm and a final exam.  The programming assignments will be in C
and MIPS assembly language (*short* MIPS programs!), and will include 
an introduction to both of these languages. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: For questions about this course, contact 
Bill Mark at 962-1917, in SN 304, or via email at markw@cs.unc.edu.