CSC 258 midterm

The midterm will potentially cover:

• logic gates and gate schematics
• boolean algebra (identities handout attached)
• Karnaugh maps not needed as long as you can simplify formulas somehow
• combinational circuits
• sequential circuits (latches, flip-flops, registers, counters (but not ripple counters))
• two's-complement representation
• arithmetic, two's-complement algorithm
• arithmetic overflow
• memory organization, addresses, kinds of memory
• (not the "communication with the CPU" stuff, yet)
• machine language (assembly language): general concepts, simple VELMA programs
• (subroutine linkage is not on the mid-term)

If you've missed some lectures, meet someone else in the class and get copies of their notes.

No aids are allowed (no calculators either), but the boolean identities handout will be attached to the midterm. You should not have to memorize any tables of stuff. If you're not clear on whether or not you have to memorize something, please ask in e-mail. For the final exam, my usual answer will be "if you asked me that question during the exam, I would tell you the answer"; unfortunately the midterm has to be during class time so time is rather short, but the same policy theoretically applies, it just may not be possible to enact depending on how many student questions there are.