CS 452/652 - Real-time Programming
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I hear the train a comin'
It's rollin' 'round the bend
And I ain't seen the sunshine
Since I don't know when...
Johnny Cash
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| Photo courtesy of y3285wan (W23) |
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Winter 2024
Important Note for Students Not Enrolled Yet
Official Course Outline
/ Registrar's Schedule of Classes
Communication
Piazza is used as the primary communication channel for announcements, clarifications, questions, discussions, etc. It is expected that all students are familiar with all material posted and discussed on Piazza. There are different Q&A for:
- announcements,
- questions, and
- reporting hardware problems.
Private posting is disabled.
For any personal matters, please email the instructor.
Accommodations
If a student needs to self-isolate due to COVID protocols, individual adjustments will be made to assignment deadlines and/or weighting depending on the particular circumstances.
Lecture Notes
Lecture notes will be posted here after class. They are telegraphic, so they are not a substitute for the lectures. But if you attend the lectures they will most likely be a good memory prosthetic.
- Jan 9, 2024 - Introduction and Overview
- Jan 11, 2024 - Devices and Trains
- Jan 16, 2024 - Polling Loops, Kernel, Tasks
- Jan 18, 2024 - ARM Processor, Context Switch
- Jan 23, 2024 - ABI, Coding, Kernel
- Jan 25, 2024 - Scheduling, Optimization, Message Passing
- Jan 30, 2024 - Name Resolution, Measurements, Caches
- Feb 1, 2024 - Interrupts
- Feb 6, 2024 - Events, Clock, Idle
- Feb 8, 2024 - Software Design, Debugging
- Feb 13, 2024 - UART Interrupt Handling
- Feb 15, 2024 - Train Velocity, Design Approach
- Feb 19-23, 2024 - Model Train Week (aka Reading Week)
- Feb 27, 2024 - Student Presentations: Kernel Design
- Feb 29, 2024 - Student Presentations: Kernel Design
- Mar 5, 2024 - Train Modelling
- Mar 7, 2024 - Latency
- Mar 12, 2024 - Demo Preparation
- Mar 14, 2024 - TC1 Demos - no class
- Mar 19, 2024 - Train Control
- Mar 21, 2024 - Software Design, Priorities
- Mar 26, 2024 - Real-time Scheduling
- Mar 28, 2024 - TC2 Demos - no class
- Apr 2, 2024 - TC2 Debrief, Recap
- Apr 4, 2024 - Class cancelled in lieu of demo preparations, Q&A (in office)
Assignments
Assignment A0 is to be completed independently by each student. Afterwards, groups of 2 students (or 3 in exceptional circumstances) work on the remaining assignments.
IMPORTANT: Late assignment submissions will not be accepted. Plagiarism detection software will be used. Students might be asked to meet with TAs and explain their code. See below for further information about academic integrity and appeals. Also see Notes on Assignments.
Due dates below are tentative until the assignment is published.
| Assignment | Link to Assignment | Due Date | Notes
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| A0 | Polling Loop | Tue, Jan 16, 9:00am | Communication with Trains and Terminal
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| K1 | Kernel (Part 1) | Tue, Jan 30, 9:00am | Context-Switch, Task Scheduling
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| K2 | Kernel (Part 2) | Tue, Feb 6, 9:00am | Message Passing, Name Server
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| K3 | Kernel (Part 3) | Thu, Feb 15, 9:00am | Event Notification, Clock Server
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| KD | Kernel Design | Tue, Feb 27, 9:00am | In-Class Presentations on Feb 27, Feb 29
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| K4 | Kernel (Part 4) | Thu, Feb 29, 9:00am | I/O Server(s)
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| TC1 | Train Control (Part 1) | Thu, Mar 14, 9:00am | Demo: control one train
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| Project | Project Proposal | Thu, Mar 21, 9:00am | submitted for feedback, not graded
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| TC2 | Train Control (Part 2) | Thu, Mar 28, 9:00am | Demo: control multiple trains
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| Project | Final Project | Mon, Apr 8, 23:55pm | Project Demo
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Final Exam
The final exam covers material from the entire course and is given as take-home exam.
It is scheduled by the Registrar for Apr 11, 9am - 11:30am.
The exam will be made available on Learn on Wednesday, Apr 10, 9am. Previous exams will be made available on Learn as well.
UW Final Exam Regulations
Math Faculty INC Rules
Resources
Lab
The lab room is MC 3018 and is for the exclusive use of CS 452/652 students. The access code is announced in class. Do not give the code to other students!
The usual rules apply, such as no food. Please see CSCF Teaching Lab Policies for details.
Most workstations in the main room run Ubuntu Linux with access to the regular linux.student.cs environment. The workstations connected to the Raspberry Pi computers run a slightly different Linux setup with a default login. Two of those are connected to train tracks. You can use the gtkterm terminal emulator to communicate with the Raspberry Pi via serial interface.
Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi computers are custom-designed by Devon Merner of CSCF
and include a custom serial hat.
Train Set
The track and trains are controlled by sending commands via the serial interface.
Building and Running Code
Cross Compiler
In the linux.student.cs environment, the cross compiler is
installed at /u/cs452/public/xdev/bin/aarch64-none-elf-gcc. The
rest of the toolchain (g++, ld, objdump, readelf, etc.) is in the same
directory, following the same naming convention.
The cross compiler can also be downloaded from here.
Make sure to pick the right host platform and select 'AArch64 bare-metal' as
target platform.
Example Code
Sample code is available in the linux.student.cs environment at
/u/cs452/public/iotest. Please see the included README file for
further information. The example is also available here and as a pre-compiled image for testing.
Uploading
The Raspberry Pis in the lab use TFTP to download an image specific to their
MAC address, which is displayed on top of the Pi. An image can be uploaded
for a specific Pi using the web interface at
https://cs452.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca. Authentication is via standard UW
credentials (including possible 2FA).
When hovering over the user name in top-right corner of the web interface
and clicking on 'Profile', one can create and/or download an API token. With
this token stored in a local plaintext file named
$HOME/.cs452_token, the script at
/u/cs452/public/tools/upload.sh can alternatively be used to upload
an image for a specific Pi by specifying its MAC address. This method only
works from on-campus computers or when using UW's VPN.
Make sure to not interfere with another person currently using a particular
Pi!
Other
Curiosities