COM SCI M151B
Computer Systems Architecture
Description: (Same as Electrical and Computer Engineering M116C.) Lecture, four hours; discussion, two hours; outside study, six hours. Enforced requisites: courses 33, and M51A or Electrical and Computer Engineering M16. Recommended: courses 111, and M152A or Electrical and Computer Engineering M116L. Computer system organization and design, implementation of CPU datapath and control, instruction set design, memory hierarchy (caches, main memory, virtual memory) organization and management, input/output subsystems (bus structures, interrupts, DMA), performance evaluation, pipelined processors. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
I actually took CS M151A with Ercegovac. The class was really tough, so it's hard to attribute the difficulty to the course material, his teaching, or a combination of both. I don't think any professor could make this class easy. Milos was a super nice professor, and although I never went to office hours he seemed very willing to help students; I think he would have been very encouraging and helpful if I had gone to him for help with the class. It helps a lot to read the book before class. The lectures are basically a lighter version of the textbook (since he wrote it), and if you go in with an idea of what to expect the information he gives out is much more helpful. If you attend lecture without reading the textbook beforehand (like I did for about the last half of the quarter), the lectures are much more difficult to follow. The book isn't very exciting but it's straightforward. I'd recommend him.
I actually took CS M151A with Ercegovac. The class was really tough, so it's hard to attribute the difficulty to the course material, his teaching, or a combination of both. I don't think any professor could make this class easy. Milos was a super nice professor, and although I never went to office hours he seemed very willing to help students; I think he would have been very encouraging and helpful if I had gone to him for help with the class. It helps a lot to read the book before class. The lectures are basically a lighter version of the textbook (since he wrote it), and if you go in with an idea of what to expect the information he gives out is much more helpful. If you attend lecture without reading the textbook beforehand (like I did for about the last half of the quarter), the lectures are much more difficult to follow. The book isn't very exciting but it's straightforward. I'd recommend him.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - Absolutely horrible class. The homeworks are way too difficult and uncomprehendable, so you cant even get a normal basic understanding of the course material. HW is graded 1 to 3 subjectively, so you can't even really know if you're doing well on the HW since there is no rubric! Absolutely horrible, if you can avoid this professor, please do so. Take Reinman, who is actually an amazing professor. Horrible class, Avoid this class if you can.
Spring 2020 - Absolutely horrible class. The homeworks are way too difficult and uncomprehendable, so you cant even get a normal basic understanding of the course material. HW is graded 1 to 3 subjectively, so you can't even really know if you're doing well on the HW since there is no rubric! Absolutely horrible, if you can avoid this professor, please do so. Take Reinman, who is actually an amazing professor. Horrible class, Avoid this class if you can.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - Tine is a new prof (as of time of writing) and his class def has some parts that could use polishing, but I overall like the class. Pros - Homework relatively easy, mostly multiple choice quizzes - I like the focus on RISC-V instead of CISC architectures - Discusses practical things and macroscopic architecture trends in class instead of just theory - Fairly interactive and engaging - Exams were easy - BruinLearn quizzes, administered in person (you use your own laptop) Cons - Project was janky. Your code doesn't actually implement a CPU; for some parts you're only implementing the out of order scheduler timings to print things in the right order - Exams were messy; prof had to constantly make clarifications
Winter 2024 - Tine is a new prof (as of time of writing) and his class def has some parts that could use polishing, but I overall like the class. Pros - Homework relatively easy, mostly multiple choice quizzes - I like the focus on RISC-V instead of CISC architectures - Discusses practical things and macroscopic architecture trends in class instead of just theory - Fairly interactive and engaging - Exams were easy - BruinLearn quizzes, administered in person (you use your own laptop) Cons - Project was janky. Your code doesn't actually implement a CPU; for some parts you're only implementing the out of order scheduler timings to print things in the right order - Exams were messy; prof had to constantly make clarifications
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