This course seems to be by the authors (and based upon) <i>The Elements of Computing Systems</i>, a truly marvellous introduction to computer architecture that holds the readers' hand as they construct a system from the hardware up. I cannot recommend it enough.
Does anyone have a recommendation for an electronics course that starts from the basics, with real hardware, for some who did electronics at highschool, but has forgotten essentially everything but some abstract knowledge. I'd really want to be able to design simple stuff on a breadboard. I know there is a ton of stuff out there, but where to start?
Highly recommend this course. I am a self-taught programmer with experience in building infrastructure backends. But I had not done formal courses like OS, computer architecture, networks etc. I was able to finish part 1 in a couple of months with just 3-4 hours per week, and came out with a deeper understanding of what goes within a computer. It also inspired me to do more formal courses in some areas that I am more interested in. It is also a nice ramp up if you want to do heavier courses while still working full-time because almost everyone can afford 4 hours per week, but following a full, formal course online (e.g, MIT OCW etc.) requires a lot more time and discipline to be able to keep momentum and finish the course in good time.
This would be so good if it were available off of Coursera, which is essentially a shake-down for certificate fees at this point. Nand2Tetris is a fantastic course.<p>Back in its heyday 3 years ago, I did a ton of courses on Coursera. They weren't perfect, of course. There was no higher-level coordination that could lead to covering an entire 4-year degree's worth of material and it was hard to match up courses from different institutions with different prereqs. It was hard to find advanced courses in general and the enforced speed at which content was expected to be completed sucked.<p>But the automated graders were great. I went through parts of many, many courses before having to abandon them due to work pressures and I finished a few, like the scala course and the fantastic automata course and some stuff from Berkeley before they bailed and moved to edX. It wasn't ideal for adult independent learners, but Coursera used to provide real value, especially for introducing niche topics that wouldn't be available via OCW.<p>It's a pity they never figured out a business model that would fit what its learners really wanted and just threw up a paywall instead.
Does anyone know if part 2 is a new Coursera offering then? I looked through the FAQ and didn't see any mention of that, only that that part 1 and 2 are stand alone courses.
I'd like to see a course where they build alternative computers. I.e. not the ones we are using now. I feel we are living too much in a monoculture.