CSC 270
Digital Circuits and Microprocessors
Spring 2004


Professor: Judith Cardell
e-mail: jcardell@cs.smith.edu
Office: Engineering 105b
Office Hours: M 1:00 - 2:30; W 11am - noon

Class Time: TR 10:30 to 11:50, Burton B17
Lab Time: T 3:00 to 4:50, Burton B01
Textbook: Digital Design 3rd ed., by M. Morris Mano, Prentice Hall, 2002

Teaching Assistant: Aye Thuzar
TA Help Sessions: MW 7:00-9:30pm; Burton B01 or B17

Course Overview:
CSC270, Circuits and Systems, is one of two (270-262) CS courses that must be taken to satisfy the Computer Science major. It is a laboratory-based class intended to give students a general background in the theory and application of computer electronics. Most students will take this class after CSC231 (Assembly language) and before CSC364 (Compute architecture), although students not as much interested in digital electronics as in computer organization can easily take CSC364 after CSC231 without any lack of background information.

This course is also cross listed with Engineering (EGR251). Engineering students who have not taken assembly language may take this course after completing a couple of self-study assignments on assembly language, which should require between one to two weeks of equivalent class time to complete.

The class is intended to give students without a previous background in physics or electricity an understanding of digital and microprocessor electronics. During the laboratory sessions, students experiment with designing and building digital circuits through the use of two Heathkit training kits, one for digital logic (first half of the semester), and the other for microprocessor hardware (second half of the semester). The digital logic labs introduce the concepts of electrical signals, direct and alternating currents, frequency, and the implementation of a binary system with dual voltage circuits. The microprocessor labs evolve around a Motorola 6800 8-bit microprocessor system, programmable in hexadecimal. The organization of this computer is explored, with emphasis on the microprocessor buses, random-access and read-only memories, as well as input/output (I/O) circuits.

Prerequisites:

CSC231, Assembly Language, is a strongly recommended prerequisite. A background in electronics and/or physics is not necessary: The intent of this course is to be self-contained and provide a general understanding of the physical aspects of digital circuits and computers.

Topics:

Course Work:
There are 8 homework sets, and 11 labs during the semester. Lab reports are due at the beginning of the lab period on the following week. Homework is due at the beginning of class on the day indicated in the schedule. There is also one midterm exam the week before Spring Break and a final exam during finals week.

Course Grading:

Homework Assignments
30%
Weekly Labs
35%
Attendance and Participation
5%
Midterm Exam
15%
Final Exam
15%

Honor Code: The homework assignments that you submit must be your own work. You are encouraged to work with your classmates to understand the concepts and the problems, but each student must work out and hand in her own homework solutions. It is not okay to copy answers from another student's homework -- doing so is a violation of the Honor Code. Labs will be done in teams of two, but each student must still hand in her own lab report, demonstrating her own understanding of the material and her own work. Do not hesitate to ask any questions that you may have concerning the honor code!

Circuit Simulator:
This logic circuit simulator is useful for testing simple circuits. It does have some less than perfect features, but is free, so use it to the extent you find it helpful. Click on the link, open the .zip file and double click on the .jar file.
Simcir121
Copyright 1998-2000, Kazuhiko Arase

microProcessor Simulator: PIPPIN
This simulator can be used to show the fetch-execute cycle for a very simple processor, if you type in a simple assembly code program. Note that the simulator will only work in Windows, and not in Linux.

Data Sheets:
(Provided by D. Thiebaut)


CSC 270 Digital Circuits Schedule

Day Topic Reading Lab HW Due
Jan 25 Course introduction;
Electricity and circuit basics 		Chapter 1   Circuit Tutorials,
Parts A and B may be helpful		  
Jan 27  
Binary systems & Boolean algebra
  		Chapter 2-1 to 2-4      
Feb 1 Logic gates Chapter 2-5 to 2-8, Lab 1
Intro to the digital kit and
simple circuits
Lab Report Format 		   
Feb 3 Maps and Circuit
minimization 		Chapter 3-1 to 3-4   HW 2 HW 1 Due Feb 3
at the beginning of class
HW1 notes
HW1 soln
Feb 8 Maps and circuit minimization Chapter 3-5 to 3-8 Lab 2
Logic circuits and a majority voter 		  Lab 1
Feb 10 Combinational Logic Chapter 4-1 to 4-5   HW 3 HW 2 due
Feb 15 Decoders and encoders Chapter 4-6 to 4-10 Lab 3
Adding and Subtracting 		  Lab 2
Feb 17 Synchronous Sequential Logic: Feedback and flipflops Chapter 5-1 to 5-3   HW 4 HW3
Feb 22 Synchronous Sequential Logic II: Analysis Chapter 5-4 and 5-6 (skip 5-5) Lab 4
Decoders and Encoders 		  Lab 3
Feb 24 Synchronous Sequential Logic III: Design Chapter 5-7      
Mar 1 Sequential Circuit Design   Lab 5
MUXes and Flip Flops 		  Lab 4
Mar 3 Vending Machine Design       HW 4
Mar 8 Sequential Circuits II;
Midterm Review		   Lab 6
The oscilloscope 		  Lab 5
Mar 10 Midterm exam in class        
Mar 15 Spring Break Spring Break Yeah
Mar 22 Registers and Counters Chapter 6-1 to 6-2 Lab 7
Traffic Light Sequencer 		  Lab 6
Mar 24 An introduction to microprocessors I handout   HW 5  
Mar 29 An introduction to microprocessor II: The 6800 handout Lab 8
Intro to the 6800 kit		    
Mar 31 no class     HW 6 HW 5 due by Friday 9am to EGR 105B
Apr 5 Introduction to RAM: Timing diagrams handout (and 7-1 to 7-3 as reference) Lab 9
Observing 6800 execution 		  Lab 8
Apr 7 RAM Addressing Schemes handout   HW 7 HW 6 due Friday April 8, 4pm to EGR 105B
Apr 12 RAM Addressing: Prelab work for lab 10 handout Lab 10
Using memory with the 6800 		  Lab 9
Apr 14 Data bus, address slection, 2-bit output ports handout   no HW 8  
Apr 19 Peripheral interfacing,
I/O circuits with flip-flops		 handout Lab 11
I/O with flip flops and a switch 		  Lab 10
Apr 21 Assembly programming:
Traffic Light & the 6800 		handout     HW 7
Apr 26 Power consumption in digital circuits handout No Lab
   Lab 11 due 4pm to EGR 105B
Apr 28 Semester Reivew        
May 3  
Final
 		 Exam Pick up any time after Friday April 29, 4pm from Bass Library Return by 4pm Thursday May 5 to Michele Schaft in Little House Exams returned between 4:00 and 4:30 will lose 1 point per minute that they are late. Exams returned after 4:30pm May 5 will not be accepted