Previews of Build a Computer in Your Head

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I am writing a new 'book' called Build a Computer In Your Head (BCIYH), pronouced as "Bikih", and I will be posting excerpts/notes regarding the subject here for you to preview and comment upon.

I have been inspired to do this by a few books and projects which you can find at the bottom of this page.

Turing taught us that computers are essentially finite state machines. On the other Alonzo Church taught us that computation is form of algebraic reduction. A defined method of condensation, or restatement of given facts into simpler facts.

Turing's picture is based on what a computer 'is' Church's picture is based on what a computer 'does'

This two view points have been at odds and slowly converging ever since they were first introduced. Building computers based on 'what they are' has always been easier (or at least more efficient) than building them by 'what they do'. So most modern systems lie closer to turnings picture than Church's.

In Bikih I plan to explore these concepts deeply.

• The Binary Abstraction
• The Turing Machine Abstraction
• The Lambda Abstraction
• Logic and Booleans
• Building Memory (Sequential Logic)
• Knowledge Representation
• Gate in all their Dimensions
• Machine Language
• Assembly Language
• Using Stacks
• Program Control
• Lexing and Parsing
• Systems
• Graphics
• I/O

A very highly recommend these books and projects to anyone really interested in learning the fundamentals of how computers and the languages written to control them work.

• Code
• Nand2Tetris
• SICP

Other Links

• http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws
• http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~simon/teaching/CS1Q-students/systems/online/

http:///wiki/?bciyh

15sep22

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