F27CS Introduction to Computer Systems

Dr Adam SampsonMehran SharghiHeba El-ShimyDr Rosalind Deena Kumari

Course co-ordinator(s): Dr Adam Sampson (Edinburgh), Mehran Sharghi (Edinburgh), Heba El-Shimy (Dubai), Fadi Haddad (Dubai), Dr Rosalind Deena Kumari (Malaysia).

Aims:

  • To introduce students to modern computer systems architecture
  • To give students an appreciation of logical design and data representation

Detailed Information

Course Description: Link to Official Course Descriptor.

Pre-requisites: none.

Location: ALP, Dubai, Edinburgh, Malaysia.

Semester: 2.

Syllabus:

  • Overview
  • Hardware components - peripherals, memory & CPU.
  • Boolean algebra.
  • Low-level information representation.
  • CPU organisation.
  • Introductory assembly language programming.
  • Operating system: I/O; interrupts; scheduler; virtual memory; file system.
  • Concurrency: processes; threads; synchronisation; shared & distributed memory; distributed & parallel architectures.
  • Language processors: compiler; interpreter; assembler; loader.
  • Linux shell scripting
  • History of Computing

SCQF Level: 7.

Credits: 15.