Course pages 2012–13

Computer Fundamentals

Computer Fundamentals is a four-lecture course that is intended to provide some context to the course as a whole and to cover the basics of computing so that everyone is up to speed.

Much of the course will be familiar to most students, but past experience has shown that the IA audience (which is composed of computer, natural and social scientists) is composed of a wide range of backgrounds. Therefore it is useful to ensure that all students have a grasp of the fundamentals before delving deeper.

The course is not examined explicitly since there is no exam question attributed to it on either of the IA CS papers. However, many of the concepts it touches on appear again in other courses, where they are open to examination.

Materials

The notes as provided in lecture one are available by clicking here.

The full set of annotated lecture notes are available by clicking here (updated after each lecture).

The handout in Lecture 1 on number systems (to be covered before Lecture 2) is available by clicking here

The examples sheet is available by clicking here.

Feedback

Feedback to the lecturer would be very welcome (rkh23@cam), although please bear in mind that it is impossible to satisfy everyone in such a course!

You can view a copy of last year's feedback here. I have used this feedback to adapt the ordering and coverage. I have also included a2 few questions on the examples sheet that are (a little) more challenging.