CISC 324*: Operating Systems, Winter 2012

Instructor: Dorothea Blostein, Goodwin 720, (613) 533-6537, blostein@cs.queensu.ca.
Prof. Blostein's holds office hours directly following each lecture (Monday 9:20, Tuesday 11:20, Thursday 10:20). Office hours take place near the classroom; for longer discussions we walk back to Goodwin Hall to Professor Blostein's office.

Teaching assistant:
Doug Martin, doug@cs.queensu.ca, Goodwin 624.
Doug is always available to answer questions by email. In lieu of office hours (which are often poorly attended), Doug is available for meetings as arranged by email. Even without email arrangements, you are welcome to stop stop by Goodwin 624 antyime and are likely to find Doug there.

Midterm Exam: NOTE CHANGE OF DATE!

Here is the schedule leading up to the midterm exam, which is now scheduled for Tuesday Feb 28.

Feb 16 (Thursday): assignment 3 due (as in the original schedule)

Feb 12-18: The TA, Doug Martin, will be away at a conference. He will be able to answer emails, but with a delay due to the time-zone change.]

Feb 20-24: Reading week

Feb 27 (Monday): lab 4 is due (as in the original schedule). Marked assignment 3 will be returned to students. Lecture time will be used for midterm review, including discussion of lab 4.

Feb 28 (Tuesday): One hour and 50 minute midterm, using the regular CISC324 lecture hour, in the regular classroom (Jeffery 234)
Students are asked to stay an extra 50 minutes after class, to write the midterm from 10:30-12:20.
For students who cannot stay late because they have to go to another class: instead come early, to write the midterm from 9:30 to 11:20.

March 1 (Thursday): lecture is canceled as in the original schedule.

March 5 (Monday): Midterms will be returned in lecture.

Textbook, Course Reader, Course Outline, Marking Scheme

The textbook and course reader are for sale at the bookstore:
• Operating System Concepts, Eighth Edition, by Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne, published by John Wiley. The textbook website provides further information and Java source code for examples in the book. The book is available in both hardcover and the less binder edition; there is no difference other than the binding and price. The seventh edition of the textbook can be substituted.

• CISC 324 Course Reader. This course reader provides
  • course outline, assignment due dates, marking scheme
  • readings to supplement the textbook
  • instructions for labs

Assignments and Labs

Please read this statement on academic integrity.

Assignments and labs must be handed in at the beginning of class on the due date. Late work is not accepted. If you have to miss a lecture and want to hand an assignment in early: bring the assignment to the School of Computing main office, on the fifth floor of Goodwin Hall, across from the elevators. After hours you can slide your assignment under the door of the main office, and Amy will put it into my mailbox. Just make sure that you clearly label the assignment: it is for CISC 324 Dorothea Blostein.

Assignments and labs may be completed individually or in pairs. If you work as a pair, make sure that both of you participate fully. Take turns writing down the final version of your assignment answers. Take turns typing and executing the code for the labs. Assignment answers may be handwritten or typeset, whatever you find most convenient.

Assignments

• Assignment 1

• Assignment 2

• Assignment 3

Assignment solutions and marked assignments are handed out in lecture. Items that are not picked up in lecture are placed in a box outside Prof. Blostein's office (Goodwin 720).

Labs

Written instructions for labs are provided in the Course Reader. This course does not have formally scheduled lab sections, so you may complete lab work anytime. If you run into difficulty, contact a TA during office hours or by email. Files needed for lab work are listed below, and are also available on caslab, at
/cas/course/cisc324
• lab 1 count.c

• lab 2
  In directory firstDemo: Demonstrate.java
  In directory threadDemo: MainMethod.java MyThread.java

• lab 3
  In directory ReaderWriter: MainMethod.java Reader.java Writer.java RandomSleep.java Synch.java

• lab 4.
  Using Java's built-in "sleep" method results in inexact timing. For example, if two threads execute sleep at the same time, the thread that executes sleep(20) may wake up before the thread that executes sleep(10). The code provided here includes a time-simulation written by Professor Blostein (in file TimeSim.java). This simulated time is handled exactly; time advances after all threads have reached a sleep or Acquire. All threads have to call Synch.timeSim.threadStart() and Synch.timeSim.threadEnd(). The car thread shows how to do this.
  In directory TrafficNew: MainMethod.java Car.java Synch.java TimeSim.java Semaphore.java

• lab 5
  The files for Lab 5 are in directory rw.monitor: MainMethod.java rwMonitor.java SharedDataStruct.java Reader.java Writer.java Note: the TimeSim code from Lab 4 does not work with labs 5 and 6; TimeSim only works with the semaphore implementation, which is not used in these labs.

• lab 6
  No new files for lab 6. Continue using your files from lab 5.