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 2026
Important Note for Students Not Enrolled Yet
Official Course Outline: CS 452/652.
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 requests a short-term absence, 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 6, 2026
- Jan 8, 2026
- Jan 13, 2026
- Jan 15, 2026
- Jan 20, 2026
- Jan 22, 2026
- Jan 27, 2026
- Jan 29, 2026
- Feb 3, 2026
- Feb 5, 2026
- Feb 10, 2026
- Feb 12, 2026
- Feb 16-20, 2026 - Model Train Week (aka Reading Week)
- Feb 24, 2026 - Student Presentations: Kernel Design
- Feb 26, 2026 - Student Presentations: Kernel Design
- Mar 3, 2026
- Mar 5, 2026
- Mar 10, 2026 - TC1 Demos - no class
- Mar 12, 2026
- Mar 17, 2026
- Mar 19, 2026
- Mar 24, 2026 - TC2 Demos - no class
- Mar 26, 2026
- Mar 31, 2026
- Apr 2, 2026
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.
Assignment solutions are not to be posted publicly - see the Faculty
of Math's Code
Sharing Policy for details.
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 the course outline
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 | Mon, Jan 19, 9:00am | Communication with Trains and Terminal
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| K1 | Kernel (Part 1) | Mon, Jan 26, 9:00am | Context-Switch, Task Scheduling
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| K2 | Kernel (Part 2) | Mon, Feb 2, 9:00am | Message Passing, Name Server
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| K3 | Kernel (Part 3) | Mon, Feb 9, 9:00am | Event Notification, Clock Server
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| K4 | Kernel (Part 4) | Mon, Feb 23, 9:00am | I/O Server(s)
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| KD | Kernel Design | Tue, Feb 24, 9:00am | In-Class Presentations on Feb 24 & 26
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| TC1 | Train Control (Part 1) | Tue, Mar 10, 9:00am | Demo: control one train
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| Project | Project Proposal | Tue, Mar 17, 9:00am | submitted for feedback, not graded
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| TC2 | Train Control (Part 2) | Tue, Mar 24, 9:00am | Demo: control multiple trains
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| Project | Final Project | Mon, Apr 6, 23:55pm | Demo: final project
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Final Exam
The final exam covers material from the entire course and is given as take-home exam.
It will be
scheduled by the Registrar
Previous exams will be made available on Learn.
UW Final Exam Regulations
Math Faculty INC Grade Process
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 customized extensions for serial communication with a terminal,
and for CAN bus communication with the Märklin Control Station 3 (CS3).
Train Set
The track and trains are controlled by sending commands via CAN bus.
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.private.uwaterloo.ca. Authentication is via
standard UW credentials (including possible 2FA). The server can only be
accessed from on-campus computers or when using UW's VPN.
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.
Make sure to not interfere with another person currently using a particular
Pi!
Other
Curiosities