Group Echo Meeting Minutes - 27/1/99

Attendance

NameEmailPresent?
Matthew Benthammjb67Yes
Trevor Boydtdb26Yes
David Dunwoodydgd21Yes
Crispin Flowerdaycehf2Yes
Simon Frankausgf22Yes
Simon Freytagsjf34No
Simon Greenwaysag25Yes

Agenda

  1. Organise documentation
  2. Decide GUI <-> Kernel interface strategy
  3. Formalise group roles

Minutes

After a quick summary of their contributions to the shared filespace by each member of the group, we decided upon a simpled GUI to kernel interface, so that we could design something as an interim specification, while we work on the main part of the code. The new specification gives the GUI complete control, executing a doInstruction(), drawMemory() loop, minimising complexity by elimating concurrency issues.

Formal job specifications were also agreed as follows:

Matthew Bentham

mjb67@cam.ac.uk Documentation and version-control.Responsible for the group filespace - keeping it tidy, and taking backups in addition to David Dunwoody's. Also has responsibility for all non-administrative documentation; that is, technical and user documentation. Controls versions, and co-ordinates building.

Trevor Boyd

tdb26@cam.ac.uk Research, code-walkthroughs, coding.Our EDSAC "guru". Keeps the rest of the group on-track with regards to accurately simulating the EDSAC. Checks over code written by other people to help ensure correctness, and has already prototyped working code for program storage and decoding from tape, in addition to Initial Orders loading.

David Dunwoody

dgd21@cam.ac.uk Group manager and secretary.Responsible for day-to-day administration tasks, assigning people to tasks, minute taking and project reports, as well as keeping backups of the filespace, in addition to Matthew Bentham's backups.

Crispin Flowerday

cehf2@cam.ac.uk Kernel programmer: processor.Tasked with coding the Processor and supporting classes. A key task, Crispin's code will form the heart of the simulation engine, communicating with the memory, and both input and output classes.

Simon Frankau

sgf22@cam.ac.uk Kernel programmer: Arithmetic and architect.Simon will be our maths expert, coding many of the smart objects that will be used throughout the code, such as the Short- and LongWord classes. This makes him the obvious choice to code the registers and the memory objects, and hence design much of the kernel that the GUI and the Processor will talk to.

Simon Freytag

sjf34@cam.ac.uk GUI Lead.Simon will be coding most of the GUI, in particular, the UI part of the GUI. He will therefore have the most influence over the look-and-feel of the project, a very important task. Simon Greenway will be helping him in this, as well as the Kernel interface.

Simon Greenway

sag25@cam.ac.uk GUI-Kernel Interface design, research.Mr. Greenway is in charge of designing an elegant interface between the simulation engine (the Kernel) and the user-interface. This is not an insignificant task, as concurrency must be taken into account.

After about 30 minutes, we agreed to end the meeting, so that we could tidy up documentation for inclusion into the first progress report, due the following day, to be compiled and submitted by dgd21.

Major Decisions

Tasks

TaskNameStartedDueProgress
Prelim Prototypingcehf2, sgf22, sjf34, tdb2618/1/9922/1/99Complete
Arithmeticcehf218/1/99ASAPComplete
Documentationmjb6718/1/99Continuous15%
Administrationdgd2118/1/99ContinuousN/A
Researchtdb26, sag2518/1/99ASAPComplete
Project Plandgd21, mjb6718/1/9929/1/9935%
Set up RCSdgd21 -> mjb6722/1/99ASAPComplete
Kernel class specsgf2225/1/99ASAP50%
TapeReader class spectdb2625/1/99ASAP30%
CPU class speccehf225/1/99ASAP30%
Memory class specsgf2225/1/99ASAP50%
Filespace managementmjb6725/1/99ASAP30%
(GUI <->) Kernel <-> Memory interfacesag2525/1/99ASAP10%
GUI <-> Kernel interfacesjf3425/1/99ASAP10%
GUI user interfacesjf3425/1/99ASAP10%

If you spot anything wrong/missing, please email me.

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Author: David Dunwoody