Syllabus (evolving...)

Introduction
  what is a computer
  notion of computation
  computers and biology
  algorithms
  abstraction

History of computing
  early computing devices
  mechanical age
  electrical age, from vaccum tubes to diodes and transistors
  modern computers

Bits... and pieces
  digital vs. analog
  boolean operators
  gates and flip-flops
  main memory
  magnetic disks
  optical disks
  flash drives

Representations
  binary system
  numbers
  decimal and binary and an algorithm
  addition in binary
  negative numbers
  fractions
  text, ASCII, unicode

Inside a computer
  Main memory
  CPU, control until, registers, ALU
  Bus
  I/O controllers
  Instruction set
  Cache memory
  Pipelining, machine cycle

Ports and Input/output devices
  serial ports, parallel ports
  SCSI, ATA, IDE, SATA
  USB, FireWire, Bluetooth
  Direct Memory Access DMA
  Input devices, keyboard, mouse
  Audio, camera, image formats, video
  Scanners, reading devices
  Output devices, displays, printers

Operating System
  Batch processing, interactive processing, time-sharing
  Application software and system software
  Components of OS
  Scheduling and disptching and interrupts
  Resource allocation, semaphores

Programming constructs - conditions, loops, recursion

Golden number, Fibonacci, grammars

Networking / Internet / html
  Topology, LANs, WANs, bridges, routers
  Architecture: 7 layes
  Routing, circuit switching, store-and forward
  TCP/IP, IP addresses

Searching / data structures

Some algorithms (from real life): sorting - coloring - matching

Grades
Homework 20%
Test I 20%
Test II 20%
Final 30%
Report 10%