We hope you are enjoying the Hardware/Software Interface course so far. You should have learned quite a few things about how data is represented in computer systems. We are now deep in the heart of understanding CPU instructions expressed in assembly language. There will be a really fun assignment (thanks to our friends at CMU) to help you understand these instructions at work and you'll be learning about a powerful debugging tool - the GNU Debugger, or "gdb".

But right now you should be working hard on programming assignment 1 that does double-duty. To get you familiar with writing basic programs in C and to manipulate the actual bits in memory. Make sure to consult web references for help in writing C code as well as our tutorial on basic C programs.

Make sure to keep up with the programming assignments. Lab 2 is going to be coming up fast.

Overall, we plan to have 11 course sections over the 8 weeks of the course of varying lengths, so section releases will not occur on an exact schedule, but we will send some announcements like this one to give you a sense of how things are progressing. You already have the first 4 sections and a couple more will be coming within the next week.

Finally, watching an online community develop so quickly as the course begins has been truly inspiring for the course staff. Students and staff both have lots of work ahead of us over the next 6 and a half weeks, but we are looking forward to it.

Tue 8 Jul 2014 8:00 AM CEST

We will be providing "statements of accomplishment" at the end of the course. The criteria will be a programming assignment score of approximately 65%. We will decide the precise cutoff at the end of the course. Thanks for your patience with us as we figure this out. It is our first Coursera course.

Hope you are enjoying the course so far.

Gaetano and Luis

Wed 2 Jul 2014 7:00 AM CEST

We want to get to know you a bit better. Who and where you are and somethings about your background. You'll find it at the bottom of the left navigation bar.

Thanks,
Gaetano and Luis

Tue 1 Jul 2014 7:00 PM CEST

Thank you again for signing up for second offering of the The Hardware/Software Interface on Coursera. The class begins today. The course website is now open and it would be great for you to get started installing the necessary software to do the assignments.

Here is what is currently available:
* The pages "About Us", "Course Logistics", "Virtual Machine Installation", and "Syllabus"
* The first three videos for "Section 0" -- these introduce the course before we launch into the main content
* Videos corresponding to the software-installation instructions ("Setting up the VM" and "Getting started with Lab0")
* The Discussion Forums

So, here is what you can do before the course begins in earnest:
* Complete the surveys
* Get the software we need for the first half of the course installed (see the videos to help you in Section 0)
* Participate in the discussion forums to find study partners, ask questions about software installation, etc.
* Watch the course-introduction videos (Section 0 under "Video Lectures") and get started on Section 1

The course staff is incredibly excited that the course is starting so soon. Registrations are still pouring in, and we are looking forward to sharing and understanding the hardware/software interface, and this entire MOOC experience, with you.

Gaetano and Luis

Mon 30 Jun 2014 7:00 PM CEST