Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the following individuals for helping make Dive into Systems a success:

Formal Reviewers

Each chapter in Dive into Systems was peer-reviewed by several CS professors around the United States. We are extremely grateful to those faculty who served as formal reviewers. Your insight, time, and recommendations have improved the rigor and precision of Dive into Systems. Specifically, we would like to acknowledge the contributions of:

  • Jeannie Albrecht (Williams College) for her review and feedback on Chapter 15.

  • John Barr (Ithaca College) for his review and feedback on chapters 6, 7, and 8, and providing general advice for the x86_64 chapter.

  • Jon Bentley for providing review and feedback on section 5.1, including line-edits.

  • Anu G. Bourgeois (Georgia State University) for her review and feedback on Chapter 4.

  • Martina Barnas (Indiana University Bloomington) for her review and insightful feedback on Chapter 14, especially section 14.4.

  • David Bunde (Knox College) for his review, comments and suggestions on Chapter 14.

  • Stephen Carl (Sewanee: The University of the South) for his careful review and detailed feedback on chapters 6 and 7.

  • Bryan Chin (U.C. San Diego) for his insightful review of the ARM assembly chapter (chapter 9).

  • Amy Csizmar Dalal (Carleton College) for her review and feedback on Chapter 5.

  • Debzani Deb (Winston-Salem State University) for her review and feedback on Chapter 11.

  • Saturnino Garcia (University of San Diego) for his review and feedback on Chapter 5.

  • Tim Haines (University of Wisconsin) for his comments and review of Chapter 3.

  • Bill Jannen (Williams College) for his detailed review and insightful comments on Chapter 11.

  • Ben Marks (Swarthmore College) for comments on chapters 1 and 2.

  • Alexander Mentis (West Point) for insightful comments and line-edits of early drafts of this book.

  • Rick Ord (U.C. San Diego) for his review and suggested corrections for the Preface, and reviewing over 60% (!!) of the book, including chapters 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 14. His feedback has helped us keep our notation and code consistent over the different chapters!

  • Joe Politz (U.C. San Diego) for his review and detailed suggestions for strengthening Chapter 12.

  • Brad Richards (University of Puget Sound) for his rapid feedback and suggestions for Chapter 12.

  • Kelly Shaw (Williams College) for her review and suggestions for Chapter 15.

  • Simon Sultana (Fresno Pacific University) for his review and suggested corrections for Chapter 1.

  • Cynthia Taylor (Oberlin College) for her review and suggested corrections of Chapter 13.

  • David Toth (Centre College) for his review and suggested corrections for Chapters 2 and 14.

  • Bryce Wiedenbeck (Davidson College) for his review and suggested corrections for Chapter 4.

  • Daniel Zingaro (University of Toronto Mississauga) for catching so many typos.

Additional Feedback

The following people caught random typos and other sundries. We are grateful for your help in finding typos!

  • Tanya Amert (Denison University)

  • Ihor Beliuha

  • Daniel Canas (Wake Forest University)

  • Chien-Chung Shen (University of Delaware)

  • Vasanta Chaganti (Swarthmore College)

  • Stephen Checkoway (Oberlin College)

  • Joe Errey

  • Artin Farahani

  • Sat Garcia (University of San Diego)

  • Aaron Gember-Jacobson (Colgate University)

  • Stephen Gilbert

  • Arina Kazakova (Swarthmore College)

  • Deborah Knox (The College of New Jersey)

  • Sivan Nachaum (Smith College)

  • Aline Normolye (Bryn Mawr College)

  • SaengMoung Park (Swarthmore College)

  • Rodrigo Piovezan (Swarthmore College)

  • Roy Ragsdale (West Point) who gave advice for restructuring the guessing game for the ARM buffer overflow exploit in chapter 9.

  • Zachary Robinson (Swarthmore College)

  • Joel Sommers (Colgate University)

  • Peter Stenger

  • Richard Weiss (Evergreen State College)

  • David Toth (Centre College)

  • Alyssa Zhang (Swarthmore College)

Early Adopters

An alpha release of Dive into Systems was piloted at West Point in Fall 2018; The beta release of the textbook was piloted at West Point and Swarthmore College in Spring 2019. In Fall 2019, Dive into Systems launched its Early Adopter Program, which enabled faculty around the United States to pilot the stable release of Dive into Systems at their institutions. The Early Adopter Program is a huge help to the authors, as it helps us get valuable insight into student and faculty experiences with the textbook. We use the feedback we receive to improve and strengthen the content of Dive into Systems, and are very thankful to everyone who completed our student and faculty surveys.

2019-2020 Early Adopters

The following individuals piloted Dive into Systems as a textbook at their institutions during the Fall 2019- Spring 2020 Academic Year:

  • John Barr (Ithaca College) - Computer Organization & Assembly Language (Comp 210)

  • Chris Branton (Drury University) - Computer Systems Concepts (CSCI 342)

  • Dick Brown (St. Olaf College) - Hardware Design (CSCI 241)

  • David Bunde (Knox College) - Introduction to Computing Systems (CS 214)

  • Bruce Char (Drexel University) - Systems Programming (CS 283)

  • Vasanta Chaganti (Swarthmore College) - Introduction to Computer Systems (CS 31)

  • Bryan Chin (U.C. San Diego) - Computer Organization and Systems Programming (CSE 30)

  • Stephen Carl (Sewanee: The University of the South) - Computer Systems and Organization (CSci 270)

  • John Dougherty (Haverford College) - Computer Organization (cs240)

  • John Foley (Smith College) - Operating Systems (CSC 262)

  • Elizabeth Johnson (Xavier University) - Programming in C

  • Alexander Kendrowitch (West Point) - Computer Organization (CS380)

  • Bill Kerney (Clovis Community College) - Assembly Programming (CSCI 45)

  • Deborah Knox (The College of New Jersey) - Computer Architecture (CSC 325)

  • Doug MacGregor (Western Colorado University) - Operating Systems/Architecture (CS 330)

  • Jeff Matocha (Ouachita Baptist University) - Computer Organization (CSCI 3093)

  • Keith Muller (U.C. San Diego) - Computer Organization and Systems Programming (CSE 30)

  • Crystal Peng (Park University) - Computer Architecture (CS 319)

  • Leo Porter (U.C. San Diego) - Introduction to Computer Architecture (CSE 141)

  • Lauren Provost (Simmons University) - Computer Architecture and Organization (CS 226)

  • Kathleen Riley (Bryn Mawr College) - Principles of Computer Organization (CMSC B240)

  • Roger Shore (High Point University) - Computer Systems (CSC-2410)

  • Tony Tong (Wheaton College, Norton MA) - Advanced Topics in Computer Science: Parallel and Distributed Computing (COMP 398)

  • Brian Toone (Samford University) - Computer Organization and Architecture (COSC 305)

  • David Toth (Centre College) - Systems Programming (CSC 280)

  • Bryce Wiedenbeck (Davidson College) - Computer Organization (CSC 250)

  • Richard Weiss (The Evergreen State College) - Computer Science Foundations: Computer Architecture (CSF)