15-418 Spring '11
Notes on Assignments and Exams

In the following, the term HOME418 refers to the home directory for the course, namely /afs/cs.cmu.edu/academic/class/15418-s11/public.

Exam 2

• Exam 2 will be held on Thursday, April 7th, from 12:00pm-1:20pm.
• The exam will be closed-book, closed-notes.
• The exam will cover all of the lecture materials that have been presented in Lectures 18-28 (including the guest lecture on the earthquake simulation, but not including the PSC guest lecture). This includes the notes that were handed out in class as well as the following chapters in the book:
  • Ch 6.1-7, Ch 5.5, Ch 7.9, Ch 8.8, Ch 7.1-8, Ch 10.1-10, Ch 11.1, Ch 11.6, Ch 11.7 intro only (i.e. from the start of 11.7 up until but not including 11.7.1), Ch 11.7.5.
• Here are some exercises in the book that may help you study for the exam:
  • 5.12, 5.13, 5.16, 5.18, 5.21, 6.12, 6.14, 6.18, 7.1, 7.7, 10.2, 10.5, 10.6, 11.1, 11.3, 11.13, and 11.15.
  • NOTE: It is not necessary to complete all of these exercises to be ready for the exam, and unfortunately we will not be able to hand out solutions to them prior to the exam. However, feeling confident about answering these questions should help you feel confident going into the exam.
• It would be a good idea to bring a calculator to the exam. (No computers or wireless devices, however.)

Assignment 3 (pdf)

• Issued on Tuesday, Feb. 22; due on Tuesday, Mar. 15, Noon.
• NOTE that we have extended the deadline until after Spring Break.
• The files you need for this assignment can be found in the directory HOME418/asst/asst3.
• The input files can be found at HOME418/asst/asst3/input.
• Here is a brief tutorial on using MPI PDF.
• Here are some online courses/tutorials on using MPI:
  • NCSA's online course "Introduction to MPI"
  • Lawrence Livermore National Lab's MPI Tutorial
• NOTE: For debugging your programs use the interative mode as mentioned in the following pages:
  • Interactive Mode in Blacklight
  • Interactive Mode in Pople

Exam 1

• Exam 1 will be held on Tuesday, February 22nd, from 12:00-1:20pm.
• The exam will be closed-book, closed-notes.
• The exam will cover all of the lecture materials that have been presented in Lectures 1-17 (i.e. up to and including Memory Consistency Models, but not the guest lecture on the earthquake simulation). This includes the notes that were handed out in class as well as the following chapters in the book:
  • Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4.1, Ch 4.3, Ch 5.1-5.4, Ch 8.1-8.2, Ch 9.1.
• Here are some exercises in the book that may help you study for the exam:
  • Ex 4.2, Ex 4.6, Ex 4.11, Ex 5.2, Ex 5.3, Ex 5.4, Ex 8.3, Ex 8.7.
  • NOTE: It is not necessary to complete all of these exercises to be ready for the exam, and unfortunately we will not be able to hand out solutions to them prior to the exam. However, feeling confident about answering these questions should help you feel confident going into the exam.
• It would be a good idea to bring a calculator to the exam. (No computers or wireless devices, however.)

Assignment 2 (pdf)

• Issued on Thursday, Feb. 3; due on Thursday, Feb. 17, Noon.
• The files you need for this assignment can be found in the directory HOME418/asst/asst2.

Assignment 1 (pdf)

• Issued on Thursday, Jan. 20; due on Thursday, Feb. 3, Noon.
• Additional Handouts (be sure to read these):
  • Tutorial on using the PSC machines [pdf]
  • OpenMP Tutorial [pdf]
• The files you need for this assignment can be found in the directory HOME418/asst/asst1.
• In addition to our own OpenMP tutorial, here are some useful links regarding OpenMP:
  • NCSA online course on OpenMP
    • This course is free. Just register with any easy-to-remember login id and password.
  • Another concise OpenMP tutorial (from Lawrence Livermore).
  • OpenMP.org
• Here is some information about the machines that you will be using:
  • PSC SGI Altix UV 1000 (blacklight)
  • PSC SGI Altix 4700 (pople)

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