APSC 380 : Introduction to Microcomputers

Contents: [ Instructor | Lectures | Tutorials | Office Hours | Teaching Assistants | Labs | Assignments | Text | Other References | Web Page | Evaluation | Prerequisites | Intended Audience | Objectives | Course Outline ]

Instructor

Ed Casas. You can contact me by e-mail: edc@ece.ubc.ca or at my office in MCLD 155 (preferably during office hours). MCLD 155 is in the basement of the Electrical and Computer Engineering building.

Lectures

Wednesdays and Fridays, 8:30 to 9:30 AM from September 3 to November 28.

All lectures will be held in MCLD 208.

Tutorials

Mondays, 8:30 to 9:30 AM from September 8 to November 24 in MCLD 208. New material may be introduced in tutorials. The tutorials will be held in the Applied Science PC Lab in CEME 2210 (the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Building).

Office Hours

Wednesdays from 1:30 to 2:30 and Fridays from 9:30 to 10:30. In MCLD 155.

Teaching Assistants

Tonghua (Tommy) Zhang (tonghuaz@ece.ubc.ca) and Shahram Davari (shahramd@ece.ubc.ca). Tommy and Shahram will help students in the lab and will mark lab reports and assignments.

Labs

The labs are an integral part of the course and all labs must be completed to pass the course. The labs are to be done individually.

The tentative schedule is as follows:

Lab   Topic                                Starts

 1    A Simple C Program                   Sep 8
 2    Programming a Keypad and Display     Sep 23
 3    A Simple Digital Circuit             Oct 17
 4    Washing Machine Controller           Nov 3       

You will have two weeks to complete each lab. You must demonstrate your program to one of the TAs when it is complete. The lab reports must be handed in before the start of the next set of labs.

One mark (out of a total of 10) will be subtracted from a lab's mark for each day it is late. Note that you must complete each lab even if you would get a mark of zero.

The APSC 380 lab is in MCLD 112. It is open 24 hours although the building will be locked outside normal working hours. TAs will be available to answer questions and check your program or circuit but only at certain times. The TAs will be available in the labs on Thursday 10:00 to 12:00 AM and Friday 1:30 to 3:30 PM.

The lab reports should include a brief description of your program or circuit, the source code listings or schematics, answers to any questions posed in the lab notes and any diagrams or other documentation that may be required to document your work.

Ken Madore is the staff member in charge of the lab. He is often available in the lab during the day and will provide you with a user ID and a password at the start of the course. He may also be able to help you with problems in the labs if you cannot find of one of the TAs and he is not busy with other duties.

Do not wait until the last few days to start the labs. They will take longer than you expect and the lab gets crowded near the end of each lab segment.

Assignments

An assignment will be given out each week and will be due the following week. Solutions will be given out for all questions but not all questions will be marked. Assignments should be placed in the assignment box labelled "APSC 380" outside the lab (MCLD 112). Late assignments will be given a mark of zero.

Assignments are to be done individually. Students are encouraged to seek help from classmates but copying is not allowed. Possible penalties for plagiarism include a mark of zero for all assignments.

Text

There is no textbook assigned for this course. Detailed notes will be distributed before the relevant lecture. The notes will often contain exercises or sections to be completed during the lecture.

Please wait until the end of the lecture before taking any extra copies. You can always print copies from the course's Web page (see below).

Other References

The C Programming Language second edition, by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, Prentice Hall, 1988, is the standard textbook on C.

The Art of Electronics, second edition, by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill, Cambridge University Press, 1989, is a good practical reference book on most aspects of electronics.

Real--Time Microcomputer System Design: An Introduction, by Peter Laurence and Konrad Mauch, McGraw-Hill, 1987, is the text previously used for this course.

Web Page

Students should check the course Web page (http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~apsc380) regularly for announcements about the course. These web pages can be read with any browser. Copies of the lecture notes, assignments, exams, and solutions will be available in various formats.

Evaluation

There will be a one-hour mid-term examination in late October (date TBD) and a final exam in December. The final mark will be calculated as follows:
	final exam  		45%
	midterm exam 		25%
	labs/reports 		20%
	assignments 		10%
All labs must be completed to pass the course.

Prerequisites

Student should have some experience programming in a procedural language such as PASCAL or C. Students should be able to analyze basic electrical and electronic circuits.

Intended Audience

Students interested in using (not designing) microcomputers for control (not computational) applications.

Objectives

By the end of the course the student should be able to: Detailed objectives will be provided in the introduction to each set of lecture notes.

Course Outline

The following is the approximate order of the topics to be covered: Contents: [ Instructor | Lectures | Tutorials | Office Hours | Teaching Assistants | Labs | Assignments | Text | Other References | Web Page | Evaluation | Prerequisites | Intended Audience | Objectives | Course Outline ]
APSC 380 Home Page