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From Nand to Tetris: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

nand2tetris.org

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Re: From Nand to Tetris: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

#3
I really cannot recommend this course enough, I find myself referring back to it in so many different fields (security, debugging, programming language design)

When I finished school, I was fairly knowledgeable about physics, including logic gates and electronics, and I was a fairly good programmer, but I had no idea how that virtual world arose from the physical.

When I type on a keyboard, what is physically happening in the universe?

This course helped me understand that question.

Re: From Nand to Tetris: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

#4
I just completed part 1 building a computer from gates and writing an assembler and am in the middle of part 2 where you develop compilers and a stack based virtual machine.

For someone like me who did not study computer science but has been a self taught programmer in the Analytics spacefor over a decade, this has been a tremendously useful and accessible introduction to basic CS concepts and very eye opening in terms of what's actually happening under the hood. This course is highly recommended if you've not studied CS though be aware the second part of the course where you develop compilers is quite intense though being an online course, you can pick your pace.

I wonder if there are similar courses on CS algorithms for people who didn't study CS in college.

Re: From Nand to Tetris: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

#5
post #2

I wish that existed as a last year course in college. It has a lot of recap on the parts that creates a modern day computer and likely gives you understanding where imperative languages come from.

I believe several college CS courses globally use this in year 2 or year 3.

Re: From Nand to Tetris: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

#6
post #4

I just completed part 1 building a computer from gates and writing an assembler and am in the middle of part 2 where you develop compilers and a stack based virtual machine. For someone like me who did not study computer science but has been a self taught programmer in the Analytics spacefor over a decade, this has been a tremendously useful and accessible introduction to basic CS concepts and very eye opening in ter…

https://www.edx.org/micromasters/ucsandiegox-algorithms-and-...

Comprises the following courses

Algorithmic Design and Techniques Data Structures Fundamentals Graph Algorithms NP-Complete Problems String Processing and Pattern Matching Algorithms Dynamic Programming: Applications In Machine Learning and Genomics Graph Algorithms in Genome Sequencing Algorithms and Data Structures Capstone

Re: From Nand to Tetris: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

#9
post #8

The title of the course is misleading, as it suggests that NAND gates are the only required primitive, whereas the course later introduces DFF gates, without which you cannot escape the parallelism of chips.

It's an optimization. You really could build the whole thing from NAND gates if you really wanted to.

http://www.learningaboutelectronics.com/Articles/D-flip-flop...

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