Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!mcnc!duke!jab
From: jab@duke.cs.duke.edu (John A. Board)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: High Performance Computing course
Message-ID: <10409@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Date: Tue, 13-Oct-87 17:32:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: duke.10409
Posted: Tue Oct 13 17:32:40 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Oct-87 05:38:24 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: Duke University CS Dept.; Durham, NC
Lines: 33
Keywords: advanced computer architecture, course design


I plan to teach a course next spring with a title like "high performance
computing" as an excuse to learn some more about advanced computer
architecture in theory and in practice.  The course is at graduate / 
advanced undergraduate level; our standard (also grad / advanced undergrad)
computer architecture course will be a prerequisite.

I will certainly cover trendy topics like RISC designs and other pipelining
strategies, hardware and software aspects of vector processing, fast
arithmetic techniques, SIMD computing, and real and paperware MIMD computing.
As we have a BBN Butterfly and an INMOS Transputer system at Duke, I will
discuss shared-memory and message-based parallel processing systems.
I like to illustrate material with as many real examples as possible, so
lots of actual architectuers will be dissected.  I don't yet have a detailed
syllabus, and I hope for some input from the net to improve my initial ideas.

Questions: 
1) Who has given / received a course like this before?  Do you know of a
   better / different syllabus?  Any pet topics that should be covered?

2) Is there a reasonable textbook covering some fraction of this
   material?  Any comments on these books (I haven't seen any of them yet):
     Supercomputer Architecture, by Paul B. Schneck, Kluwer Publishers, 1987.
     High Performance Computer Architecture, by Stone, Addison-Wesley, 1987.

Please email any advice/suggestions, etc.  I will summarize for anyone
interested!  Thanks.

-- 
John Board                                   INET: jab@cs.duke.edu
Assistant Professor                          UUCP: ...!mcnc!duke!jab
Dept. Electrical Eng'g and Dept. Comp. Sci.  BITNET: DBOARD@TUCC
Duke University, Durham NC USA               AT+T: +1 (919) 684-3123