CS Primer — Computer Systems

Exercises from the CS Primer Computer Systems track.

The course covers binary encoding, C programming, x86-64 assembly, CPU performance, and memory hierarchy. Exercises are organized by module below.

---

bits-and-bytes/

Low-level data encoding and binary format exercises in Python.

Exercise	Description
varint/	Protobuf variable-length integer encode/decode
varint-extension/	Same, reimplemented as a Python C extension
color-convert/	Convert CSS hex colors (#rrggbb) to rgb() format
utf8-truncate/	Truncate a UTF-8 string at N bytes without splitting a codepoint
image-rotate/	Parse a BMP file and rotate the image 90 degrees
syn-flood/	Parse a .pcap network capture and detect SYN flood patterns

intro-to-c/

C programming exercises covering data structures and the C standard library.

Exercise	Description
dynamic-array/	Generic resizable array (like Python's list) in C
hashmap/	Hash table with separate chaining, djb2 and FNV-1a hash functions, and load-factor resize
csapp/	CS:APP textbook exercises — unsigned integer casting and shift behavior
c_KeC/	K&R The C Programming Language exercises

assembly/

x86-64 assembly language exercises. Each folder has a .asm source, a C test harness, and a Makefile.

Exercise	Description
hello-x64/	Hello world using raw syscalls (macOS and Linux)
sum-to-n/	Compute 1+2+…+n using the closed-form formula
matrix-access/	Row-major 2D array element addressing
x64-pangram/	Detect if a string is a pangram using a bitmask
binary-convert/	Convert a binary string (e.g. "1010") to an integer
cone-volume/	Compute cone volume V = ⅓πr²h using SSE floating point
x64-fib/	Recursive Fibonacci using the x86-64 calling convention

Reference materials: inte_manual_assembly.pdf, x86_64_register_map.svg

cpu/

CPU microarchitecture and memory hierarchy exercises.

Exercise	Description
grayscale/	BMP grayscale conversion — C baseline and compiler-generated assembly
color-quantize/	SIMD-optimized color quantization with Google Benchmark harness
fast-pangram/	Fast pangram detection using a 26-bit bitmask in C
bogosum/	Ordered vs random memory access — cache hit/miss analysis
pointer-chase/	Pointer chasing microbenchmark; measure data loading and statistical analysis

---

Course by Oz Solberg.