| Instructor: | Tom Bennet |
| Office: | 302 MCC |
| Phone: | 601-925-3815 |
| Email: | bennet@mc.edu |
| Text: | Modern Operating Systems, by Tanenbaum & Bos |
| Web Page: |
Three hours of lecture per week. An introduction to the various data and control structures necessary for the design and implementation of modern computer operating systems. Process creation and control, interprocess communication, synchronization and concurrency, memory management, and file systems concepts are explored in the context of the Unix operating system. A working knowledge of the C programming language is assumed.
Prerequisites: CSc 220, CSc 314.
Computer hardware can perform no function without software, and the foundational piece of software in any computer system is the operating system. All other software depends on services provided by the OS, and cannot function without these services. Students who will write application programs of any sophistication must understand what an OS does, how it works and how a program communicates with it. Furthermore, many interesting problems have been solved by the designers of operating systems as these have evolved over the last fifty years. A study of operating systems gives students an important window into this problem-solving history.
Instruction in this course is through lecture and class discussion, problems solved on paper, and programming problems solved in the computer lab.
After completing this course with a passing grade, students will be able to discuss operating systems from the viewpoint of an operating systems designer. Students will be conversant in the major theoretical topics relating to operating system design and implementation as described in the course description above. Students will know the principles of communication between an application program and an operating system.
This class is a mixed undergraduate/graduate section. For graduate students, an additional 100-point graduate project is required. For both classes, grades are assigned based on the percentage of points earned.
| Activity | Points |
|---|---|
| Projects | 250 |
| Regular exams (3 @ 100) | 300 |
| Comprehensive Final Exam | 200 |
| TOTAL | 750 |
| Undergrad | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | Percent | Grade | ||||
| 675 | – | 750 | 90% | – | 100% | A |
| 600 | – | 674 | 80% | – | 89% | B |
| 525 | – | 599 | 70% | – | 79% | C |
| 450 | – | 524 | 60% | – | 69% | D |
| 0 | – | 449 | 50% | – | 59% | F |
| Graduate (+100 pts) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | Percent | Grade | ||||
| 765 | – | 850 | 90% | – | 100% | A |
| 680 | – | 764 | 80% | – | 89% | B |
| 595 | – | 679 | 70% | – | 79% | C |
| 510 | – | 594 | 60% | – | 69% | D |
| 0 | – | 509 | 50% | – | 59% | F |
The semester point total may vary due to unforeseen circumstances. Any variance should be small. Final grades will be based on these same percentages of the actual total. The final exam will be at noon on Friday, December 8.
The last day to drop this course is Friday, October 27, 2023.
Projects should be handed in on time, and late projects are charged 10 points for each day late. However, each student has five free late days which may be spent on any programming project in any combination. Free late days are not transferable, and expire at start of the final exam.
Mississippi College class attendance policies as described on pp. 46 and 47 of the college catalog will be enforced. Absences may be excused for illness or other appropriate cause. Exams missed due to circumstances beyond the student's control may be made up at a mutually agreeable time and place. Adequate documentation of the cause of an absence may be required.
The MC Syllabus contains all policies and procedures that are applicable to every course offered by Mississippi College, both on campus and online. The policies in the MC Syllabus describe the official policies of the University as they relate to instruction and will take precedence over those found elsewhere. It is the students responsibility to read and be familiar with every policy. The MC Syllabus may be accessed at any time on the MC website.
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