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FIT10** Introduction to computer systems, networks and security – S2 2024
Assignment 2 – Processes and MARIE Programming
Purpose
Your task
Part 1a: Submit your reflections. See details below.
Part 1b: Write a short report describing the processes running on your computer. Part 1c: Disassemble and add comments to a MARIE program.
Part 1d: Write a MARIE program that can display bitmap numbers.
Part 2: Interview for Part 1d.
Value
Word Limit
Due Date
Assessment Criteria
Part 1a is assessed based on relevance of the submission to the unit.
Part 1b is assessed based on correctness and completeness of the descriptions. Part 1c is assessed based on correctness of the code and the labels/comments. Part 1d is assessed based on correctness of the code, as well as the documentation/comments.
Part 2 is assessed based on the understanding of the code you have written. See instructions for details.
Processes and programs are what make computers do what we want them to do. In the first part of this assignment, students will investigate the processes running on their computers. The second part is about programming in MARIE assembly language. This will allow students to demonstrate their comprehension of the fundamental way a processor works.
The assignment relates to Unit Learning Outcomes 2, 3 and 4.
25% of your total marks for the unit.
The assignment is marked out of 60 marks.
See individual instructions.
Part 1a-1d: 11:55 pm Friday 30 August 2024 Part 2: Interview during Week 8
Submission
• This is an individual assignment (group work is not permitted).
• Turnitin and MOSS will be used for similarity checking of all submissions.
Ignore the Turnitin warning or error messages for zip files or other non-
document files.
• DRAFT submission is not assessed. DRAFT upload confirmation email from Turnitin is not a submission. You must press the submit button to accept the terms and conditions in Moodle.
• In this assessment, you must not use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to generate any materials or content in relation to the assessment task.
• You will need to explain and extend your code in an interview. (Part 2)
INSTRUCTIONS
This assignment has five parts. Make sure you read the instructions carefully.
For Part 1a, collect your reflections from each week’s Ed Lesson and create a single PDF document. You can simply copy/paste your reflection, but please add headings for each week. Submit the PDF through the Moodle Assignment activity.
Part 1b-1d, you need to submit files through the Moodle Assignment activity.
Files that are required via Moodle Assignment Submission:
• Part 1a: one pdf file (containing reflection from Week 4, 5 and 6) • Part 1b: one pdf file (containing answer)
• Part 1c: one .mas file for Part 1c
• Part 1d: one .mas file for Part 1d
You may see the following error message from Turnitin. You can ignore this error message!
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Late Penalties
• 5% deduction per calendar day or part thereof for up to one week
• Submissions more than 7 calendar days after the due date will receive a mark
of zero (0) and no assessment feedback will be provided.
Support Resources
Feedback
Feedback will be provided on student work via:
• general cohort performance
• specific student feedback ten working days post submission
See Moodle Assessment page
Part 2 is an interview in Week 8. Instructions will be available in Moodle and communicated via an announcement post.
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Part 1a: Reflections (Hurdle – you MUST submit it in order to pass this assignment!)
Complete your reflection activities in Week 4 to Week 6 Ed Lesson and copy/paste them into a pdf file. Each week the reflection must have at least 100 words (relevant and meaningful to the specific week).
Failure to submit all relevant week’s reflections (missing all submissions or incomplete submissions) will result in your assignment 1 having a maximum mark of 49% only. For example, if the overall combined mark is 61/100, it will be scaled to 49/100. If the overall combined mark is 44/100 then it will remain as 44/100.
You may use the template provided in Moodle to write down your reflection.
Part 1b: Processes (10 marks total)
For this task, write a brief report about processes that you observe running on your computer. You can use one of the following tools (depending on your operating system):
• On Windows, use the Task Manager
• On macOS, use the Activity Monitor
• On Linux, use a command line tool like htop, top, or the ps command
Answer the following questions:
1. Briefly describe the columns displayed by the tool you use that relate to a) memory usage and b) CPU usage of a process. What can you say about the overall memory usage of all processes, compared to the RAM installed in your computer? Include graphs or charts for the comparison. (5 marks)
2. Pick a process you perhaps don’t know much about, or which you did not expect to find running on your computer. Try to find out and describe briefly what it does. (5 marks)
Include a screenshot of your processes in the report along with CPU/memory usage graphs and/or charts. The screenshot should show between 5 and 10 processes.
The word limit for this part (both questions together) is 500 words (about 1 page, not including images and tables). Use APA 7th referencing style in the report.
Submit your report for this part (Part 1b) as a PDF file (independent of the other parts) in Moodle.
Part 1c: MARIE Disassembly (20 marks total)
Follow the link on Moodle to access your personalised MARIE memory screenshot for this task.
Important: Your memory screenshot is different from the one other students are working on. Only download the file while you are correctly logged into Moodle with your own student account.
Task 1: Disassemble the memory (10 marks)
Based on the memory contents, recreate the MARIE program that corresponds to your personalised memory screenshot. This is called “disassembling” the machine code, since it is the opposite operation of “assembling” the MARIE code into the binary memory contents.
For each memory cell, decode the instruction and (if applicable) the address that the memory cell is encoding. You can make the following assumptions:
- There is exactly one Halt instruction in the code
- Every memory location after the Halt instruction contains data
- Any memory location that contains the value 0 is data (even before the Halt instruction)
Here is an example of a memory screenshot and the corresponding decoded MARIE program: Disassembled program:
Input
Add 005
Output
Jump 000
Halt
DEC 10
Note: You need to decode the actual instructions. E.g. for the first memory location, HEX 5000 would not be a valid answer. The contents of all memory that follows the Halt instruction is considered to be data. Therefore, DEC 10 is the correct decoding of location 5 (instead of JnS 00A), and HEX 00A would also be correct. You don’t need to list all the locations containing zeros starting from address 006 (these will be filled with zeros by the assembler anyway).
Tip: You can verify that your disassembled code is correct by entering it into the MARIE simulator, assembling it and comparing the memory contents to the screenshot you started from.
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Task 2: Add labels (5 marks)
Now update the program you decoded in Task 2.1. Removing all hard-coded memory addresses by adding labels to replace all memory locations that are used as addresses in the program instructions. Labels should have meaningful names in the context of what the program does (i.e., not just A, B, C). For the example above, this could result in the following program:
MainLoop, Input
Add Ten
Output
Jump MainLoop
Halt
Ten, DEC 10
Task 3: Add comments (5 marks)
Comment the code based on your understanding of what it does. Comments should describe the function of the different parts. E.g., if you identify a subroutine in the code, add a comment at the start of the subroutine that describes what it does, and whether it takes any arguments.
For this part (Part 1c), you need to submit one .mas file containing your final code. Do not submit one .mas file per each subtask!
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Part 1d: MARIE Programming (22 marks)
In this task you will develop a MARIE application that draws numbers on the screen. We will break it down into steps for you.
Each task requires you to write code and documentation. On Moodle, you will find a template for the code. Your submission must be based on this template, i.e., you must add implementations of your own subroutines into the template. The template already contains the main program that calls the subroutines.
Your code must contain readable comments and meaningful labels for your tutor / marker to understand the logic flow of your program (e.g. the purpose of a subroutine, jump / skipcond statement etc.).
Interview (Part 2): You will be required to join an interview to demonstrate your code to your tutor in week 8 (after the submission deadline). Failure to demonstrate will lead to zero marks being awarded for the entire Part 1d, regardless of your submission in Moodle. In addition, during the interview (Part 2), you will also need to answer further questions about your submitted code (see below for details).
Code similarity: We use tools such as MOSS and Turnitin to check for collaboration and copying between students. If you copy parts of your code from other students, or you let them copy parts of your code, this will result in a report to the Academic Integrity team. As a result, you may receive a penalty such as 0 marks for the entire assignment, 0 marks for the whole unit, or in severe cases (such as contract cheating), suspension or expulsion from Monash University.
Rubric: The marking rubric on Moodle provides details for the marking. A correctly working MARIE program that covers all tasks and is well documented will receive full marks. Missing/incomplete documentation will result in a loss of up to 1⁄4 of the task’s marks.
Introduction: Bit-mapped displays
So far, the only output capability we have seen in the MARIE system is using the Output instruction, which will print a single 16-bit value. Many computers of course are capable of displaying arbitrary graphics, often in high resolution and great colour depth.
In the lectures on input/output systems, we have seen that one way to implement this is to map a certain location of the memory to an output device. I.e., writing to that memory location (e.g. using a Store instruction) causes the output to happen.
In the simplest form of graphics hardware, we can dedicate part of the RAM to be graphics memory. Each memory cell corresponds to a pixel on screen, and the value in the memory cell encodes the colour of the pixel. That way, we can create arbitrary graphics by simply writing values into the memory.
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The MARIE simulator has a feature called Display, which you access from the list of tabs that also shows the output log, RTL log etc:
The display shows the memory from address F00 to address FFF as a 16x16 pixel screen. The value in the memory locations represents the colour of the pixels. We will only use the colours black, represented as 0, and white, represented as FFFF. When you start the MARIE simulator and assemble your code, the memory starting from location F00 is (usually) filled with zeroes, which means that the display is black. Let’s now change the contents of the memory using some Store instructions:
Load White
Store 0F80
Store 0F81
Store 0F82
Store 0F83
Halt
White, HEX FFFF
After running this program, the display will look like this:
You can see that the first four pixels in the 9th row have now turned white.
Task 1: Clearing the display (4 marks)
Write a subroutine SubClearDisplay that turns all pixels in the graphics memory white. Remember that the graphics memory ranges from address 0F00 to address 0FFF, and that white pixels are represented by the value FFFF. Document your subroutine with comments.
Task 2: Painting a number (10 marks)
The template for this task contains data for bitmaps of the digits 0-9, stored at the label Font. Each digit consists of 3x5 pixels of data. The first 3 words are the first row of pixels, the next 3 words are the second row, and so on. For example, the digit 2 is represented as
0 0 FFFF FFFF FFFF 0 FFFF 0 FFFF 0 FFFF FFFF 000
You can see the pattern here, the zeros “paint” the shape of the character 2 in black, with the background in white (FFFF).
Your task is to write a subroutine called SubPaintDigit that paints a digit into the graphics memory. The start of the subroutine needs to look like this:
PaintDigitCharacter, HEX 0
PaintDigitDisplay, HEX 0
SubPaintDigit, HEX 0
In the PaintDigitCharacter argument, we pass the address of the first pixel data in the font for the digit we want to paint. In the PaintDigitDisplay argument, we pass the address of the top- left corner where we want to start painting in the graphics memory. For example, to paint the digit 0, starting from the second pixel in the second row, we could use the following code:
Load FontAddr
Store PaintDigitCharacter
Load Display22
Store PaintDigitDisplay
JnS SubPaintDigit
Halt
Display22, HEX 0F11
Note that the address 0F11 (label Display22) lies exactly 17 words after the start of the graphics memory. This means we’re skipping the first row (16 words) and the first pixel in the second row (1 word).
Here we simply use FontAddr to refer to the first character (for the digit 0). For the other characters, we would have to add a corresponding offset into the font memory.
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In order to paint a digit in your subroutine, you can follow this “recipe”:
- Your subroutine should contain two nested loops.
- Each digit contains 15 pixels, so you need to loop through those 15 pixels, load each one from
the font definition and store it into the graphics memory. This is the outer loop of your
subroutine.
- After each set of 3 pixels, you need to start in the next row of the graphics display. This means
that if you were currently writing into graphics memory at address X, you now need to continue writing at address X plus the width of the display minus the width of a character. This is the inner loop of your subroutine.
- Once you have “copied” all 15 pixels from the font definition into the graphics memory, you can exit the subroutine.
Your subroutine needs to contain sufficient comments to enable someone else (like the person marking your assignment) to understand the purpose of each line of your code.
Task 3: Counting down (8 marks)
Your final task is to implement a subroutine SubCountDown that clears the screen and then counts down from 9 to 0, drawing those digits on the bit-mapped display using the subroutines developed in the previous tasks.
In order to get full marks, your code needs to use a loop that decrements a counter and calls SubPaintDigit based on the value of the counter, rather than a sequence of instructions that calls SubPaintDigit with each digit’s address. Use additional subroutines to structure your code nicely.
You will notice that it would be nice for the countdown to wait for a fraction of a second between digits. Think of a way you can achieve this, so that the countdown takes (more or less) exactly 10 seconds on your computer to execute. Document how you achieved this in the code comments.
A sample output video for this part (part 1d) is provided for your reference:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NQPMNCuLoVxf7dD8omFqacS9SRCcefQC/view?usp=drive_link
For this part (Part 1d), you need to submit one .mas file, based on the template, containing the code for all subroutines. Do not submit one .mas file per each subtask!
Part 2: Interview (8 marks)
You need to demonstrate the code you submitted for Part 1d Task 1–3 to your tutor in an interview (to be conducted in Week 8) after the submission deadline. Failure to explain how your code works will result in 0 marks for the individual tasks that you cannot demonstrate.
In addition, you will be asked to modify the code you submitted in certain ways and explain how the MARIE concepts work that you were required to use for the individual tasks. These additional questions add up to 8 marks for this task (Task 2).
Failure to attend the interview will result in 0 marks for the entire Part 1d and 2, regardless of your submission in Moodle.
Submission Checklist: Please check before you submit: Altogether, you should submit the following files:
• Part 1a:
o 1 pdf file for Week 4 to Week 6 Reflection
Failure to submit this file will result in getting only a maximum
49% marks in this assignment (combined part 1 and part 2)!
• Part 1b:
o 1 pdf file – your answers to Part 1b questions
• Part 1b:
o 1 .mas file – only one .mas file containing your final code. Do NOT
submit one .mas file per each subtask! You MUST NOT submit any
pdf file in this part!
• Part 1d:
o 1 .mas file – only one .mas file containing your final code based on the template, containing the code for all subroutines. Do NOT submit one .mas file per each subtask! You MUST NOT submit any pdf file in this part!
Failure to submit the correct file type (e.g. submit a word file instead of pdf file in Part 1b, or a pdf file in Part 1c or Part 1d), or missing any file in your submission (e.g. your weekly reflection) will result in significant marks deduction.
Please check before you submit! You CANNOT revert any submission!!!
(Note: Draft submission is not assessed!)
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