15-213/15-513/14-513 Introduction to Computer Systems (ICS)

Fall 2025

15-213 Pittsburgh: Tue, Thu 12:30 PM-01:50 PM, GHC 4401, Brian Railing and Phillip Gibbons
14-513 Pittsburgh: Tue, Thu 12:30 PM-01:50 PM, CIC 1201, Taha Khan

12 units

The ICS course provides a programmer's view of how computer systems execute programs, store information, and communicate. It enables students to become more effective programmers, especially in dealing with issues of performance, portability and robustness. It also serves as a foundation for courses on compilers, networks, operating systems, and computer architecture, where a deeper understanding of systems-level issues is required. Topics covered include: machine-level code and its generation by optimizing compilers, performance evaluation and optimization, computer arithmetic, memory organization and management, networking technology and protocols, and supporting concurrent computation.

Course Syllabus

Prerequisites: 15-122

What's New?

First day of class is Tuesday, Aug 26th.

Getting Help

Ed	Ed
Email	Please use Ed for help, instead of email. Posts to Ed are private by default.
Tutoring	The Student Academic Success Center provides tutoring for this course. Appointments for one-on-one tutoring can be booked via its WCOnline schedule.
Office Hours	TA office hours use an online queue for both in-person and remote office hours. In person: Please specify a room number when adding yourself to the queue. Remote: Please specify a Zoom meeting ID and select the REMOTE tag in the queue. If you are remote but do not select the tag, we reserve the right to kick you from the queue as we cannot filter your question to the remote TA's. Faculty office hours will be at the locations and times listed at the bottom of this page.

Course Materials

Schedule	Lecture schedule, slides, recitation notes, readings, and code
Labs	Details of the labs, due dates, and policies
Assignments	Details of the written assignments, due dates, and policies
Exams	Information about the midterm and final exams
Lab Machines	Instructions for using the lab machines
Resources	Additional course resources

Course Information

For details

See the course syllabus for details (below is just a few overview bits).

Lectures

See above

15-213 Recitations

15-213 Section A:	Fri 10:00 AM-10:50 AM	WEH 4708
15-213 Section B:	Fri 10:00 AM-10:50 AM	DH 2105
15-213 Section C:	Fri 11:00 AM-11:50 AM	WEH 5328
15-213 Section D:	Fri 11:00 AM-11:50 AM	DH 2105
15-213 Section E:	Fri 12:00 PM-12:50 PM	WEH 5328
15-213 Section F:	Fri 12:00 PM-12:50 PM	DH 2105
15-213 Section G:	Fri 01:00 PM-01:50 PM	WEH 5328
15-213 Section H:	Fri 01:00 PM-01:50 PM	PH 125B
15-213 Section I:	Fri 02:00 PM-02:50 PM	WEH 5328
15-213 Section J:	Fri 02:00 PM-02:50 PM	POS 147
15-213 Section K:	Fri 03:00 PM-03:50 PM	CFA 102
14-513 Section A:	Fri 10:00 AM-10:50 AM	CIC 1201
14-513 Section B:	Fri 04:00 PM-04:50 PM	INI DEC
14-513 Section C:	Fri 01:00 PM-01:50 PM	INI DEC

Textbooks

Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron,
Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective, Third Edition, Pearson, 2016

Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie,
The C Programming Language, Second Edition, Prentice Hall, 1988

Credit

12 units

Grading

Composed from total lab performance (50%), total written assignment performance (10%), midterm exam performance (15%) and final exam performance (25%).

Labs

There are 9 labs (L0-L8), not evenly weighted. See the labs page for the breakdown.

Exam

There is a midterm exam, part takehome (all students) and part in-class, closed book (15-213 and 14-513 only). There is a final exam, held during exam week, closed book.

Home

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~213

Questions

Ed, office hours

Canvas

Canvas will be used (i) to handin written assignments and (ii) to conduct ungraded, in-class quizzes. Your grading information will be kept up to date in Autolab, not in Canvas.

Course Directory

/afs/cs/academic/class/15213-f25/

Instructors

Name	Brian Railing	Phillip Gibbons	Taha Khan
Contact	bpr@cs.cmu.edu	gibbons@cs.cmu.edu	mtk2@andrew.cmu.edu
Office	GHC 6005	GHC 7221	CIC 2324
Office Hours	Fri 11:00 AM-12:00 PM	Tues 02:00 PM-03:00 PM	Thur 03:00 PM-04:00 PM