cs24-25fa

Introduction to Computing Systems (Fall 2025)

Staff Handouts Schedule

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. Ordentlich and the TAs hold many office hours.

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. Ordentlich, 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 •Extension Request Form

Course Staff

Instructor

Prof. Ordentlich
he/him
Book an appointment!
Annenberg 122
eordentl@caltech.edu
Prof. Blank
they/them
Book an appointment!
Annenberg 115
blank@caltech.edu

Teaching Assistants

Hopper
she/her
hopper@
Vansh Tibrewal
he/him
vtibrewa@
Reiden Walker
he/they
rrwalker@
Brady Bhalla
he/him
bbhalla@
Ellie Chen
she/her
echen2@
Simone Shevchuk
she/her
sshevchu@
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

ARM64 Reference – a description of relevant instructions and ABIs for ARM64

Schedule

L00 Mon, Sep 29 Perspectives on Computing Systems
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 01 Memory
What does an abstraction for memory look like? Give me the details!
L02 Fri, Oct 03 Fixed-Width Integers
How do computers represent integers? What about negative numbers? How does this affect me as a programmer?
DS 4.1-4.7
DUE Fri, Oct 03
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.
L03 Mon, Oct 06 ARM64 Introduction
What is ARM64? Why should I care about assembly? How can I understand basic assembly programs and instructions such as mov and others?
DS 9.1-9.3
L04 Wed, Oct 08 ARM64 Conditionals
How does branching work in ARM64? What is a label? How can we translate if statements into assembly?
DS 9.4
L05 Fri, Oct 10 ARM64 Procedures
How do function calls and returns work? What is 'the stack' really?
DS 9.7-9.9, 12
DUE Fri, Oct 10
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.
L06 Mon, Oct 13 More ARM64 Procedures
How does recursion work using the stack?
DS 9.7-9.9, 12
L07 Wed, Oct 15 ARM64 Recursive Procedures
L08 Fri, Oct 17 Quiz
DUE Fri, Oct 17
12:00 pm		 Quiz
L09 Mon, Oct 20 Security: Buffer Overflows
What happens if we read past the end of a buffer? How can we exploit this?
L10 Wed, Oct 22 Security: Buffer Overflows
L11 Fri, Oct 24 Security: Buffer Overflows
DUE Fri, Oct 24
11:30 pm		 project02 (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.
L12 Mon, Oct 27 Dynamic Memory: Basic
What does a "basic" implementation of malloc look like?
L13 Wed, Oct 29 Dynamic Memory: Advanced
How can we make a performant malloc implementation?
L14 Fri, Oct 31 Dynamic Memory
DUE Fri, Oct 31
11:30 pm		 project03 (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.
L15 Mon, Nov 03 Dynamic Memory: Recap I
L16 Wed, Nov 05 Dynamic Memory: Recap II
L17 Fri, Nov 07 Review
L18 Mon, Nov 10 Midterm
DUE Mon, Nov 10
12:00 pm		 Midterm
L19 Wed, Nov 12 ECF: Processes
What is a process? How does Linux create, maintain, and destroy processes? How do shells work?
DS 13.2, OSTEP 5
L20 Fri, Nov 14 ECF: Linux Syscalls
L21 Mon, Nov 17 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
L22 Wed, Nov 19 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
DUE Wed, Nov 19
11:30 pm		 project04a (midterm) [ guide ]
The main goal of this project is to write an implict list implementation of malloc.
L23 Fri, Nov 21 Memory: Cache Memories
A further investigation into Hardware Cache Memories
DS 11.3
L24 Mon, Nov 24 Memory: Virtual Memory
An introduction to WeensyOS. How can every process see the same memory layout?
DS 13.3
L25 Wed, Nov 26 Security: Side-Channel Attacks
L26 Fri, Nov 28 Thanksgiving: No Class
L27 Mon, Dec 01 Security: Meltdown
Meltdown!
DUE Tue, Dec 02
11:30 pm		 project04b (malloc) [ guide ]
The main goal of this project is to write an explicit list implementation of malloc.
L28 Wed, Dec 03 Final Exam Review
L29 Fri, Dec 05 Victory Lap