CS107 is the third course in Stanford’s introductory programming sequence. CS106 provides students with a solid foundation in programming methodology and abstractions, and CS107 follows on to give you the skills needed to build computer systems.
There are two major learning goals for the course.
First, to understand how computers represent information, execute programs, and control peripherals.
Second, to master command-line programming tools and the C programming language.
The course builds understanding from the ground up using bare metal programming on the Raspberry Pi. Bare metal programming uses no operating system and few external libraries.
Students will receive a Raspberry Pi and a kit of parts, and all assignments will run on the Raspberry Pi. Assignments build upon each other by adding more and more functionality to a core library. They culminate in a simple personal computer shell using a keyboard and display.
Finally, students do a project of their choosing where they build a complete hardware-software system.
All class announcements will be posted on Piazza.
In the readings, K&R is The C Programming Language (Kernighan and Ritchie), and EssentialC is a PDF available via Stanford’s CS Library. A digital copy of K&R is available to Stanford students via Safari Books Online.
Please read the assigned readings before attending lecture and lab. You should also read the guides for each week.
| Topics | Readings | |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 Apr 3 | ||
| Lecture 1 (Mon): Introduction (slides) | Review electricity, binary and hexadecimal numbers and bitwise operations, and the unix command line. | |
| No Lab (review this unix tutorial video we borrowed from CS107) | ||
| Assignment 0: Choose Lab Section, Learn Git | ||
| Lecture 2 (Fri): Introduction to ARM processor and memory architecture (slides, code) | Start with Baking Pi ( intro, ok01, ok02 ) and then read about ARM ASM. I also recommend you read Steven Wolfram's blog post Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace for a nice descption of Charles Babbage's and Lady Ada Lovelace's roles in developing the concept of a general-purpose computer. | |
| Week 2 Apr 10 | ||
| Lecture 3 (Mon): ARM Assembly Language and Machine Code (slides, code) | Read/Skim sections 4.1-4.5 from the ARM Instruction Set Architecture manual. Read Danny Cohen's article Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace on the history of littie-endian vs. big-endian. | |
| Lab 1: Setup the Raspberry Pi | ||
| Assignment 1: Implement a Larson Scanner | ||
| Lecture 4 (Fri): From ASM to C (slides, code) | Brush up on C syntax, data types, operators, control structure, and function calls. EssentialC chapters 1 and 2; or K&R 1, 2, and 3. Skip sections involving characters, strings, io, and standard libraries. Read about the history of C | |
| Week 3 Apr 17 | ||
| Lecture 5 (Mon): C: Pointers and Arrays (slides, code) | EssentialC chapters 3 (skip material on structures) and 6 (skip material on the heap and memory management).; or K&R and 5.1-5.4. Make sure to read the sections involving characters and strings. | |
| Lab 2: Below C Level | ||
| Assignment 2: Implement a Clock | ||
| Lecture 6 (Fri): Functions (slides, code) | Read (or read again) about functions in C (Chapter 4 in K&R, Section 4 in Essential C), Read this nice explanation of local data and frame pointers | |
| Week 4 Apr 24 | ||
| Lecture 7 (Mon): Communication: The serial protocol and ASCII (slides, code) | Read about characters and strings, basic IO (getc, putc, puts, printf), and structures (Section 1.5, 1.6, 1.9, 5.5, 6, 7 in K&R; Section 3 in EssentialC). Read about Serial Communication. | |
| Lab 3: Debugging and Testing | ||
| Assignment 3: Implement a String Formatting Library | ||
| Lecture 8 (Fri): Modules and Libraries: Linking (slides, code), Testing (slides, code) | Read David Welch's articles on baremetal programming and bss data. | |
| Week 5 May 1 | ||
| Lecture 9 (Mon): Memory Management (slides, code), | ||
| Lab 4: Linking and Loading | ||
| Assignment 4: Backtrace and Heap Allocator | ||
| Lecture 10 (Fri): I/O: External Peripherals, SPI, PS/2, and PWM | (slides, code), Read about the PS/2 protocol for keyboards and mice | |
| Week 6 May 8 | ||
| Chris Gregg, Guest lecturer | ||
| Lab 5: Keyboard Surfin | ||
| Assignment 5: Reading the Keyboard | ||
| Lecture 11 (Fri): Graphics and the framebuffer (slides, code) | Read more about the Framebuffer in the Baking Pi lectures (Screen01, Screen02, Screen03, Screen04). | |
| Week 7 May 15 | ||
| Lecture 12 (Mon): C mastery and MIDI (slides, code) | Some more details on MIDI: physical layer, protocol, Volta Keys, Volta Beats | |
| Lab 6: Drawing into the Framebuffer | ||
| Assignment 6: Building a Graphics Library and Console | ||
| Lecture 13 (Fri): Interrupts (slides, code, minimal timer interrupt example code) | ||
| Week 8 May 22 | ||
| Lecture 14 (Mon): Interrupts and Concurrency (slides, code) | ||
| Lab 7: Raspberry Pi, Interrupted | ||
| Assignment 7: System Monitor with Interrupts | Read Project Suggestions and Guides for inspiration | |
| Lecture 15 (Fri): Rust (slides, code) + Sensors (slides, code) | ||
| Week 9 May 29 | ||
| (Mon): Memorial Day | ||
| Project Lab 1: What is Your Project? | ||
| Lecture 16 (Fri): Performance (code) | ||
| Week 10 June 5 | ||
| Lecture 17 (Mon): To Linux and Beyond (slides, code (note this code is to run natively in Linux on a Pi) | ||
| Project Lab 2: How Are You Doing? | ||
| Week 11 June 12 | ||
| Wed June 14th: Final project presentations (9-11:30am) |