cs24-24fa

Introduction to Computing Systems (Fall 2024)

Welcome to CS 24! We’re super excited to have you here this term!

Most Recent Announcements

Due Next

Office Hours Status

Calendar

Wellness and Inclusion

It is very important to us that you succeed in CS 24. We provide many extra resources to help you. Prof. Blank and the TAs hold many office hours, and we have an Ed Discussion Board (coming soon) where you can ask questions asynchronously.

It is also very important to us that you maintain your mental wellness throughout the course. A few points are not worth losing sleep over. Everyone on the course staff is available to chat, and you can always attend office hours for a non-academic conversation if necessary. You can also visit the counseling center if you find you need help beyond the course staff. If you have a temporary health condition or permanent disability (either mental health or physical health related), you should contact accessibility services if you have not already. Additionally, if there is something we can do to make your experience better, please let us know.

Diversity, inclusion, and belonging are all core values of this course. All participants in this course must be treated with respect by other members of the community in accordance with the honor code. If you feel unwelcome or unsafe in any way, no matter how minor, we encourage you to talk to Prof. Blank or one of the Deans. We view these sorts of honor code violations as completely unacceptable, and we take them very seriously.

Tools

Project Registration Diagnostics Attempt #1 Website

Course Staff

Instructor

they/them
Book an appointment!
Annenberg 115
blank@caltech.edu
(626) 395-1765

Teaching Assistants

Hopper
she/her
hopper@
Sahil Azad
he/him
sazad@
Vansh Tibrewal
he/him
vtibrewa@
Brady Bhalla
he/him
bbhalla@
Eric Lee
he/they
eclee@
Jun Hyuk Kwak
he/him
jkwak@
Kevin Cai
he/him
kcai2@
Max Chen
he/him
mfchen@
Zachary Huang
he/him
zwhuang@

Handouts

The following is a list of handouts that you might find helpful throughout the course. We’ve categorized them by when they are useful.

Course

Syllabus – an overview of the course and administrative information

Collaboration Policy – the course collaboration policy

Code Quality Guidelines – a list of style requirements for the projects

Tools of the Trade – tutorials for tools that you will need to use in this course

Manual Pages – documentation for relevant standard C functions

Weeks 2 & 3

x86-64 Reference – a description of relevant instructions and ABIs for x86-64

Schedule

L00 Mon, Sep 30 Perspectives on Computing Systems [ pdf ]
What is this course about? How will grading work? What will the notes look like? What is hexadecimal and why do I care? How do computers represent information?
L01 Wed, Oct 02 Memory [ pdf ]
What does an abstraction for memory look like? Give me the details!
L02 Fri, Oct 04 Fixed-Width Integers [ pdf ]
How do computers represent integers? What about negative numbers? How does this affect me as a programmer?
DS 4.1-4.7
L03 Mon, Oct 07 x86-64 Introduction [ pdf ]
What is x86-64? Why should I care about assembly? How can I understand basic assembly programs and instructions such as mov and others?
DS 7.1-7.3
DUE Mon, Oct 07
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 1a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
L04 Wed, Oct 09 x86-64 Conditionals
How does branching work in x86-64? What is a label? How can we translate if statements into assembly?
DS 7.4
DUE Wed, Oct 09
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 2a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
DUE Thu, Oct 10
11:30 pm
pretest (disk) [ guide ]
The main goal of this pre-test is to orient you to what CS 24 will be like. It will also cover representation, use number bases, and review pointers.
L05 Fri, Oct 11 x86-64 Procedures
How do function calls and returns work? What is 'the stack' really?
DS 7.7-7.9, 12
DUE Fri, Oct 11
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 3a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
L06 Mon, Oct 14 More x86-64 Procedures
How does recursion work using the stack?
DS 7.7-7.9, 12
DUE Mon, Oct 14
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 4a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
L07 Wed, Oct 16 x86-64 Recursive Procedures
DUE Wed, Oct 16
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 5a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
DUE Thu, Oct 17
11:30 pm
project01 (jvm) [ guide ]
This project involves building a simplified Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to processes bytecode and allow for Java programs to be executed on a custom virtual machine.
L08 Fri, Oct 18 Bomb Demo 1
DUE Fri, Oct 18
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 6a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
L09 Mon, Oct 21 Bomb Demo 2
DUE Mon, Oct 21
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 7a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
L10 Wed, Oct 23 Security: Buffer Overflows
What happens if we read past the end of a buffer? How can we exploit this?
DUE Wed, Oct 23
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 8a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
DUE Thu, Oct 24
11:30 pm
project02a (bomb) [ guide ]
This project involves reverse engineering some passwords by reading x86-64 assembly code
L11 Fri, Oct 25 HTTP and Buffer Overflow Review
How do you make a request to a webserver? Review of buffer overflow exploits.
L12 Mon, Oct 28 Dynamic Memory: Basic
What does a "basic" implementation of malloc look like?
DUE Mon, Oct 28
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 9a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
L13 Wed, Oct 30 Dynamic Memory: Advanced [ pdf ]
How can we make a performant malloc implementation?
DUE Thu, Oct 31
11:30 pm
project02b (asmgen) [ guide ]
The main goal of this project is to build a small BASIC-to-ASM compiler to gain a basic understanding of how compilers work.
L14 Fri, Nov 01 Dynamic Memory: Garbage Collection
How does Python handle reclaiming memory?
L15 Mon, Nov 04 ECF: Processes I
What is a process? How does Linux create, maintain, and destroy processes? How do shells work?
DS 13.2, OSTEP 5
L16 Wed, Nov 06 ECF: Processes II
What is a process? How does Linux create, maintain, and destroy processes? How do shells work?
DS 13.2, OSTEP 5
DUE Thu, Nov 07
11:30 pm
adventure (adventure) [ guide ]
The main goal of this project is to write several buffer overflow exploits to perform data injection and eventually arbitrary code execution on a remote machine.
L17 Fri, Nov 08 ECF: Signals
How do programs that are misbehaving get dealt with? How does the kernel communicate to user programs that something important has happened?
DS 13.4.1
L18 Mon, Nov 11 ECF: Exceptions
DS 13.1
DUE Mon, Nov 11
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 12a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
DUE Mon, Nov 11
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 13a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
DUE Mon, Nov 11
11:30 pm
Diagnostic 14a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
L19 Wed, Nov 13 Memory: Locality & The Memory Hierarchy
How is memory unified into a seemingly giant array? What properties of programs make this work? How can we write good programs that take advantage of these properties?
DS 11.1-11.2
L20 Fri, Nov 15 Memory: Cache Memories
A further investigation into Hardware Cache Memories
DS 11.3
DUE Sun, Nov 17
11:30 pm
midterm (midterm) [ guide ]
The main goal of this midterm is to write an implict list implementation of malloc.
L21 Mon, Nov 18 Memory: Virtual Memory
An introduction to WeensyOS. How can every process see the same memory layout?
DS 13.3
DUE Mon, Nov 18
12:00 pm
Diagnostic 15a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
DUE Tue, Nov 19
12:00 am
Diagnostic 10a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
DUE Tue, Nov 19
12:00 am
Diagnostic 11a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
L22 Wed, Nov 20 Security: Side-Channel Attacks
L23 Fri, Nov 22 Security: Meltdown
Meltdown!
DUE Fri, Nov 22
12:00 pm
Diagnostic 16a (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
DUE Sun, Nov 24
11:30 pm
project03 (malloc) [ guide ]
The main goal of this project is to build upon your understanding of malloc by writing an explicit list memory allocator.
L24 Mon, Nov 25 Concurrent Programming: Processes & Threads
How can we execute multiple things at the same time?
OSTEP 26
DUE Wed, Nov 27
12:00 am
Diagnostic 13b (attempt 2) [ link ]
This is the second attempt for this diagnostic. You can complete it even if you didn't do the first attempt in lecture.
L25 Wed, Nov 27 Concurrent Programming: pthreads & mutexes
How can we make sure to avoid race conditions in a concurrent context?
OSTEP 27
L26 Fri, Nov 29 Concurrent Programming: Condition Variables
OSTEP 30
L27 Mon, Dec 02 Concurrent Programming: More Condition Variables
OSTEP 30
L28 Wed, Dec 04 Final Exam Review
L29 Fri, Dec 06 Victory Lap
DUE Sun, Dec 08
11:30 pm
project04a (vm) [ guide ]
The main goal of this project is to implement a virtual memory abstraction in a small operating system.
DUE Sun, Dec 08
11:30 pm
project04b (meltdown) [ guide ]
The main goal of this project is to use the meltdown attack to break the virtual memory abstraction on a real processor.