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FIT1047 Introduction to computer systems, networks and
security – OCT 2024
Assignment 2 – Processes and MARIE Programming
Purpose 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.
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 25% of your total marks for the unit.
The assignment is marked out of 60 marks.
Word Limit See individual instructions.
Due Date Part 1a-1d: 11:55 pm Friday 29 November 2024
Part 2: Interview during Weeks 7-9
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)
Assessment Part 1a is assessed based on relevance of the submission to the unit.
Criteria 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.
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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 See Moodle Assessment page
Resources
Feedback Feedback will be provided on student work via:
• general cohort performance
• specific student feedback ten working days post submission
INSTRUCTIONS
This assignment has five parts. Please ensure you read and follow the instructions carefully.
For Part 1a, you need to submit one file through Moodle Assignment activity:
1) A PDF file containing Week 4 to Week 6 Reflections.
• Failure to submit this file will result in a maximum of 49% for the entire Assignment 2.
For Part 1b-1d, you need to submit files through the respective Moodle Assignment activities:
1) Part 1b: one PDF file (containing answer).
2) Part 1c: one MARIE (.mas) file based on the template for Part 1c, and your individualised
memory screenshot (.png) downloaded from Moodle.
3) Part 1d: one MARIE (.mas) file based on the template for Part 1d.
• Failure to submit the correct file type, or using the correct template, will result in significant marks
deduction.
You should clearly indicate the part that the file refers to, e.g. using appropriate file names such as
ID_Part1b_Report.pdf, ID_Part1d_CountDown.mas, etc. The individualised
memory screenshot file does not need to be renamed.
• Please check your final upload before submit! You CANNOT revert any submission after it’s made.
• If there is a Turnitin warning or error messages for non-document files, you can disregard the error
messages.
Part 2 is an online interview scheduled for Weeks 7 to 9. 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, focusing on relevant and meaningful
content specific to each week. Please ensure to add headings for each week.
You can use the template provided on Moodle to organize and write your reflection.
Failure to submit all relevant weekly reflections (whether missing entirely or incomplete) will
result in your Assignment 2 having a maximum possible mark of 49%. For example, if the overall
combined mark is 61/100, it will be scaled down to 49/100. If the overall combined mark is 44/100, it
will remain unchanged at 44/100.
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 processes. Discuss the overall memory usage of all processes and compare
it to the total RAM installed on your computer. Use graphs or charts to support your
comparison in memory and CPU usage. (5 marks)
2. Pick a process you are unfamiliar with or did not expect to find running on your computer.
Investigate and provide a brief description of what it does. You may also evaluate its
significance or impact on your system. (5 marks)
Include a screenshot of your running processes in the report, displaying between 5 and 10 processes,
along with CPU and memory usage graphs and/or charts. The combined word limit for Part 1b is 500
words (approximately 1 page, excluding images and tables). Please use APA 7th referencing style for
in-text citations and the list of references throughout the report.
Submit your report for this part (Part 1b) as a PDF file (independent of the other parts) in
Moodle.
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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 not an 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 with.
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Task 2: Add labels (5 marks)
Now update the program you decoded in Task 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 to enhance understanding of its functionality and improve overall readability.
Comments should describe the purpose of different sections of the code. For example, if a subroutine
is identified, include a comment at the beginning that explains the subroutine’s purpose and specifies
any arguments it may take. Ensure that the comments are well-organised and concise to facilitate
easier comprehension for anyone reviewing the code.
For this part (Part 1c), you need to submit one .mas file based on the provided template,
containing ONLY your final code. Please DO NOT submit separate .mas files for each subtask!
The assembled code in memory should match your personalised memory screenshot.
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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 incorporate your own
subroutines implementations into the template. The template already includes the main program that
calls the subroutines, but users can modify the code in the main program to execute different tasks.
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 participate in an interview between Week 7 and Week 9
(after the submission deadline), where you will demonstrate your code to your tutor. Failure to
demonstrate your code will result in a score of zero for the entire Part 1d, regardless of your
submission on Moodle. Additionally, during the interview, you will 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 ¼ 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.
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Task 1: Reset the display (4 marks)
Write a subroutine SubResetDisplay 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: Paint a number (10 marks)
The template for this task contains data for bitmaps of the digits 0-9, stored at the label
DigitPixels. 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
0000 0000 FFFF
FFFF FFFF 0000
FFFF 0000 FFFF
0000 FFFF FFFF
0000 0000 0000
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 SubDrawDigit that paints a digit into the graphics memory.
The beginning of the subroutine should be structured as follows:
DigitDataAddress, HEX 0
DigitDisplayAddress, HEX 0
SubDrawDigit, HEX 0
In the DigitDataAddress argument, you will pass the address of the first pixel data for the digit
you want to paint, as defined in the DigitPixels. In the DigitDisplayAddress argument,
you will provide the address of the top-left corner in the graphic memory where you wish to start
painting the digit. For example, to paint the digit 0, starting from the second pixel in the second row, we
could use the following code:
Load DigitPixelsAddr
Store DigitDataAddress
Load Display11
Store DigitDisplayAddress
JnS SubDrawDigit
Halt
Display11, HEX 0F11
Note that the address 0F11 (label Display11) 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 DigitPixelsAddr to refer to the first character (for the digit 0). For the other
characters, we would have to add a corresponding offset into the DigitPixels memory.
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To paint a digit in your subroutine, you can follow this “recipe”:
• Each digit consists of 15 pixels (3 columns x 5 rows). You need to loop through these 15 pixels,
loading each one from the DigitPixels definition and storing it in the graphics memory.
• Your subroutine should contain two nested loops:
o Outer Loop (Rows): Loop through each row of the digit.
o Inner Loop (Columns): Within the outer loop, loop through each column of the current row.
- Retrieve the corresponding pixel data from DigitDataAddress
- Store the pixel data at the correct graphics memory address (e.g.
DigitDisplayAddress plus the current row offset and current column offset).
• Once you have “copied” all 15 pixels from the DigitPixels definition into the graphics
memory, you can exit the subroutine.
Your subroutine must include sufficient comments to help others (such as the person marking your
assignment) in understanding the purpose of your code.
Task 3: Create a countdown timer (8 marks)
Your final task is to implement a subroutine SubDigitTimer 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.
To get full marks, your code should utilise a loop that decrements a counter, calling SubDrawDigit
based on the counter’s value, rather than using a series of instructions to calls SubDrawDigit with
each digit’s address. Consider using additional subroutines to enhance the structure your code.
Additionally, it would be beneficial for the countdown to pause for a fraction of a second between
digits. Users may adjust a counter to control the duration of this pause. Think of a method to achieve
this, so that the countdown takes approximately 10 seconds to complete a computer. Document you
approach in the code comments.
A sample output video for this task is provided for your reference:
[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!
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Part 2: Interview (8 marks)
You are required to demonstrate the code you submitted for Part 1d (Tasks 1–3) during an interview
with your tutor (to be conducted between Week 7 and Week 9) after the submission deadline.
Failure to explain how your code works will result in receiving 0 marks, as well as 0 marks for any
individual tasks that you cannot demonstrate.
In addition, you will also be asked to modify your submitted code you in specific ways and explain the
MARIE concepts you applied in the individual tasks. These additional questions add up to 8 marks for
the interview.
Failure to attend the interview will result in 0 marks for the entire Part 1d and Part 2, regardless
of your submission in Moodle.