Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

In the first activity of my Computer Systems Organization lab class during the last day of the second week of the third term, of course, as I mentioned yesterday, the first thing I did was to tell them about the change in teachers in two of their subjects and the change in schedule in one of those subjects.

I couched it to them as good news and bad news, in that I was going to be their teacher in another subject and not going to be their teacher in the currently scheduled one.

I had to repeat the news a few times because of some students who arrived late. Immediately one of their reactions was that the new teacher was the teacher they had been traumatized under during the last term. “It’s Ms. G???”

When I assured them that this was someone newly hired and of the opposite gender to boot, their new reaction was, “It’s the husband of Ms. G???”

I emphasized that it was not, either.

Finally though they settled down, so I started discussing with them how we were going to proceed in the lab.

I had to introduce them, first of all, to how breadboards worked: what holes were actually connected, and which holes were not.

Then I showed them how to plug the integrated circuits into the breadboards, and how to determine the side of the IC at which to start counting the pin numbers. This is the side to the left of the “gouge” in the side, or near the circle at one corner – not in the middle.

I also told them to always remember to connect the power up of the chip, both the positive five volt pin and the ground. At this juncture I gave them a recommendation about color coding their wires to make it less confusing for them.

Finally we tested some gate chips (and, or and not) with a voltmeter so that they could practice how to connect the chips, wires and variable DC power supply, and at the same time learn how to determine if the output of a circuit is considered as computer read high or low.

Session 953 is not powered up. Class dismissed.