We will begin our study of digital systems by designing and building a simple digital stopwatch. This should be a fun project that will illustrate the basic ideas of digital systems. We will learn how some important integrated circuit (IC) chips operate, and also how the chips are connected together as subsystems to form a larger system. This project is intended to give you a "big picture" view of digital systems, after which we will concentrate more on fundamental principles of digital systems as discussed in Chapters 11-13 of the Bobrow text.

Background reading:: Notes will be distributed in class pertaining to the stopwatch. You should browse through Chapters 11-13 in the Bobrow text. We will begin discussing Chapter 11 during the week of April 6.

Due date: Please work alone or in groups of two to implement the stopwatch. Your stopwatch must be operating before your lab session on April 9, so that you can demonstrate your system at the beginning of lab on April 9. The lab sessions on April 2 are optional, since many of you will attend the ACM trip to IBM on that day. No written homework will be assigned while you are working on this project, but you will need to wire and test your system outside of class time. Please be sure that you understand how all of the subsystems in the stopwatch work, and be sure that you understand the design process that we use.

Thank you and have fun.