Notices for Computer Logic Design

This page contains general notices for Computer Logic Design.

12/08/01 - The final exam will be on Wednesday, December 12th at 3:30 to 5:30 in the classroom (CHE 104). The instructions that will appear on the final exam are:

Welcome to the comprehensive final exam in Computer Logic Design (CDA 3201).
You have 120 minutes.  Read each problem carefully.  There are twelve
required problems (each worth 8 points and 4 total points for free) and one
extra credit problem worth 5 points.  You may have with you (on your desk,
that is) a calculator, pencils, erasers, blank paper, and a lucky rabbit's
foot.  You are given Table 2.2 (page 91) of your text (Boolean algebra
postulates and theorems) on the last page of this exam.  Please start each
numbered problem on a new sheet of paper and do not write on the back of the
sheets.  Submit everything in problem order.  No sharing of calculators.
Good luck and be sure to show your work!

12/02/01 - The solution to the lab quiz is... here(PDF).

11/28/01 - Below are the instructions as they will appear on the lab quiz.

Welcome to the lab quiz in Computer Logic design lab (CDA 3201L). You have 75
minutes.  Read each problem carefully.  There are eight required problems
(each worth 12 points and neatness will fetch you four points) and one extra
credit problem worth five points.  You may have with you (on your desk,
that is) a calculator, pencils, erasers, and blank paper.  Please start each
numbered problem on a new sheet of paper (unless otherwise stated) and do not
write on the back of the sheets.  Submit everything in problem order.  No
sharing of calculators.  Pin diagrams for the TTL Chips are provided at the
end of the quiz. Good luck and be sure to show your work!

11/19/01 - The solution to the most recent pop quiz is... here (page 1 of 2) and here (page 2 of 2) (GIF).

11/19/01 - Below are the instructions as they will appear on exam #2. Exam #2 will cover material starting with latches and flip-flops and through today (state equivalence and implication table method).

Welcome to exam #2 in Computer Logic Design (CDA 3201).  You have 75 minutes.
Read each problem carefully.  There are seven required problems (each worth
14 points - you get 2 points for submitting this cover sheet on top of all
your work pages) and one extra credit problem worth 5 points.  You may have
with you (on your desk, that is) a calculator, pencils, erasers, blank paper,
and a lucky rabbit's foot.  Please start each numbered problem on a new sheet
of paper and do not write on the back of the sheets.  Submit everything in
problem order.  No sharing of calculators.  Good luck and be sure to show
your work!

11/12/01 - The final exam will be on Wednesday, December 12th at 3:30 to 5:30 in the classroom (CHE 104).

11/12/01 - The solution to the last pop quiz is... here (GIF).

11/05/01 - The solution to the most recent pop quiz is... here (GIF).

10/22/01 - Several students have been using CircuitMaker student version (it is free!) to prepare for lab. This virtual electronics lab lets you design, simulate, and output a schematic for logic circuits. I have not yet tried the CircuitMaker product. I am currently evaluating Multisim as tool to possibly use. Please let me know if you have any good, or bad, experiences with these or other tools.

10/17/01 - Here is how HW will be graded. Each problem or sub-problem (e.g., 4.26a) is graded as 4/3/2/0. It is 4pts if completely correct, 3 pts if minor error, 2pts if right direction, and 0 pts if totally off base (or nothing attempted). The point scores are then added-up and normalized to 10. For HW#4 there are 14 problems (this includes subproblems) for a total unnormalized score of 56 pts... divided by 5.6 to get a 10. So, if you totally miss one problem and have another problem with a minor error (but, everything else is perfect)... your score would be 51 / 5.6 = 9.1 which rounds to a 9/10 (a score over 9.5 would round to 10/10). Got it!?

10/11/01 - If you have questions for the exam, I will be in my office all day Friday except for about 1:30 to 3:30. If you wish to meet with me during the weekend, let me know what time... I am usually (but not always) here on weekends too. In general, email is a wonderful medium to ask and answer questions.

10/11/01 - It appears that HW #4 may have some minor grading problems. Please re-submit your graded HW #4 on Monday the 15th for a "re-grade".

10/11/01 - The Lab #6 should be quite straightforward. We have covered adders in class. If you have any questions on the lab, please ask!

10/11/01 - For the exam the most important thing to do is to THINK. If a problem appears to require 3+ pages of Boolean algebra or a "really huge" truth table... this is a hint that you are doing the problem wrong. Step-back and re-evaluate how the problem should be solved. Partial credit is the key to high scores. NEVER leave a problem blank.

10/10/01 - Understanding what is voltage, current, and resistance (and the relationship between these) is fundamental knowledge that you must have to be a computer engineer (or computer scientist). It is electricity that makes our logic circuits "go" (but, it doesn't have to be... molecular computing and other esoteric fields of computing implement logic in altogether different ways). See here for a nice discussion of Ohm's Law (with links to definitions of voltage, current, and resistance). If you have never before used whatis.com... it is a useful site.

08/30/01 - Site is now up.

Last updated by Ken Christensen on DECEMBER 8, 2001