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CST 8214 Course Home Page
Computer Technology Fundamentals

Class Notes arranged:

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Winter (January-April) 2008

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Ian face Instructor:  Ian! D. Allen Ian face
Contact E-mail, Office, Phone:
  See the Prof Timetable
WWW: My Teaching Home Page
My Personal Home Page
Test Board: Master list of all CS term tests
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Office Hours - Winter 2007

See my Prof Timetable schedule to make an office appointment to see me.

Important Dates for CST8214 Students

  • 2008-01-07 - Monday Jan 07 - Week 1 - Algonquin classes start
  • 2008-02-08 - Friday Feb 08 - Week 5 - Midterm Test #1
  • 2008-02-18 - Monday Feb 18 - Week 7 - Family Day (no classes)
  • 2008-02-25 to 29 - Feb 25-29 - Algonquin Winter Break (no classes)
  • 2008-03-18 - Tuesday Mar 18 - Week 10 - Midterm Test #2
  • 2008-03-21 - Friday Mar 21 - Week 10 - Good Friday (no classes)
  • 2008-03-24 - Monday Mar 24 - Week 11 - Algonquin final withdrawal date
  • 2008-04-18 - Friday Apr 18 - Week 14 - Lab Exam (in class)
  • 2008-04-18 - Friday Apr 18 - Week 14 - Last Day of Classes
  • 2008-04-19 to 26 - Week 15 - Algonquin Final Assessment Week

Term assignments and labs will also be due every week or two (for a total of 15%).

Forward your Algonquin EMail

EMail is a critical part of course delivery for this course. You must have a working Algonquin EMail address for this course. You must read your EMail regularly (daily) during the school term.

You can forward your Algonquin EMail to any other address you wish.  Search for "forward" in the ITS Mail Help . Please ensure that your email messages always originate from your Algonquin EMail address or else my spam blocker may throw away your unknown mail address as junk. Your "From:" address must be your Algonquin EMail address, not a Hotmail, Carleton, or other off-campus address.

You are responsible for keeping your own forwarding address accurate during the term.  During the term, I will only send your marks to your (possibly forwarded) Algonquin EMail address.

You may wish to set your "alternate" EMail using Algonquin ACSIS while on campus.  I may use your alternate EMail to inform you that your main Algonquin EMail account has a forwarding error; no personal data will ever be sent to the alternate EMail address.

Plagiarism and Academic Fraud

No unauthorized copying!  Restricted group work!  Restricted working together!

Working together is not permitted except in assignments specifically labelled by the instructor as group assignments. 

Even where using another person's material is permitted (from other students, books, the Internet, or even from the blackboard or posted course notes), copying material from other sources and submitting it without proper credit to the author is an academic offence called plagiarism.  You must credit the source of material that you did not write yourself, no matter from where it comes!

Students working together without authorization or submitting work containing plagiarized material in the programme will be charged with academic fraud under Algonquin Academic Regulations.  Read the plagiarism document for details.

See also: Algonquin College Academic Policies and Algonquin College Directives and Algonquin College Directive E43 - Plagiarism

Required Course Textbook

The Essentials of Computer Organization and Architecture (Second Edition 2006)
Author: Linda Null and Julia Lobur (note the correct spelling), ISBN: 0-7637-3769-0 (single) or 0-7637-4482-4 (bundle), Publisher: Jones Bartlett, Copyright: 2006, Format: Hardcover 799 pp, Published: 2002-06-11
Textbook errors (errata sheets) for Second Edition:
  1. Errors in Second Edition, First Printing
  2. Errors in Second Edition, Second Printing
The errata sheet for the Second Edition, Third Printing isn't available. The Third Printing has some of the errors mentioned at the end of the Second Printing, above.

The College got a special "bundle" price for this text that includes an Intel Assembly Language text that is not required for CST8214. The ISBN number for the bundle is "0763744824".

Required Hardware Kit and Supplies

The Hardware Kit for CST8214 is available at the Algonquin New Technology Store. The PC Toolkit contains a screwdriver and antistatic wrist strap. You will also need a Duo-Tang binder for your lab assignments and notes, a small tray to hold loose parts such as screws, and a few floppy diskettes.

Alternate Web Notes

Web notes for this course are not kept at Algonquin College.  I pay for them to be stored on a commercial Linux-based web hosting service, with backup copies located in other locations.

Write down the locations of the web notes and their backup copies from the list below. (You won't be able to get to this page if the main web site is down!)

  1. http://teaching.idallen.com/cst8214/08w/    (main .com site)
    The main dot .com site is located in a large data centre in Denver, Colorado, USA.
  2. http://teaching.idallen.org/cst8214/08w/    (note the dot .org domain suffix!)
    The .org site is located in a large data centre in New York city.
  3. http://acadunix.algonquincollege.com/~alleni/teaching/cst8214/08w/     (on campus)
    The ACADUNIX site is accessible from inside Algonquin College even when the College Internet is broken. Unfortunately, the web server on ACADUNIX is broken and will not serve up the directory index files correctly. You can read the Class Notes by appending /notes/ to the above URL.
  4. http://elearning.algonquincollege.com/coursemat/alleni/idallen/cst8214/08w/     (on campus)
    The ELEARNING site is accessible from inside Algonquin College even when the College Internet is broken. Unfortunately, the web server on ELEARNING is broken and will not serve up the directory index files correctly. You can read the Class Notes by appending /notes/ to the above URL.
  5. http://teaching.idallen.ca/     (Note the dot .ca domain suffix!)
    The dot .ca sites are located at my home in downtown Ottawa (limited bandwidth). Don't use them unless all the other sites are down.

Web Author: Ian! D. Allen   idallen@idallen.ca

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