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Date: 2 Aug 93 12:26:39 GMT
From: agate!linus!linus.mitre.org!mwunix.mitre.org!m23588@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  
(Richard Conn)
Subject: Re: Are 'best' universities being targeted
Message-ID: <1993Aug2.122639.12124@linus.mitre.org>
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

In article <PAT.93Jul30080947@crl-sc2.nmsu.edu>, pat@nmsu.edu (Pat Gioannini) w
rites:
|> 
|> I would like to see a class in which CS students are teamed with
|> EE students to build a peripheral for a computer, such as a uart.
|> The EE student wuold be resposible for the hardward design and fab;
|> the CS student would be responsible for the software design and 
|> implementation to make the hardware do something useful.  This
|> would give the student a feeling for how their decisions affect
|> each other.
|> 
|> 
|> Additionally the CS student should implement the software to use
|> this hardware in several languages.  I would pick assembly, C, Ada,
|> assembly mixed with C, and assembly mixed with Ada.  This would 
|> demonstrate the strength and weeknesses of each enviornment. 
|> 
|> 
|> pat gioannini
I taught an interesting lab at AFIT when I was a professor there.
Taking a simple microcomputer (this was circa 1980-82), the lab led
up to a final project where the students had to design the software for
the boot sector of a floppy disk that would be read by the microcomputer
on start up and load an "operating system" from another part of the disk.
Speaking of learning a LOT about floppy disk controllers, low-level
devices, etc.  The students found it to be a real challenge, and I was
very pleased at how much they learned from the experience.

Today, how about doing the same thing, but writing the boot program
(one sector in size or as needed by your target microcomputer's boot
ROM) in Ada?  As a professor, be sure to do it first yourself before
giving it to the students.  Also, you need a real-time Ada compiler
(i.e., targets for real-time, embedded, no-operating-system targets).

Rick Conn