I assume that everyone in the class is already familiar with the C and Scheme languages, and capable of writing small, working programs in either one. I also assume you can use the Unix utilities gdb, make, rcs, lex, and a text editor such as vi or emacs. (These are for your benefit, not mine: I sha'n't grade your use of Unix utilities, but I doubt you can survive the course without using them.)
The official prerequisites for the course are CSC 270 (Survey of Programming Languages) and CSC 271 (Software I).