Somewhat related: looks like Prof. Harry Lewis is also teaching a class on "Classic CS" during the Spring 2020 term at MIT.<p>"This subject examines papers every computer scientist should have read, with an emphasis on the period from the 1930s to the 1980s. It is meant to be a synthesizing experience for advanced students in computer science: a way for them to see the field as a whole, not through a survey, but by reliving the experience of its creation, relating the original work to the field as it exists today. The aim is to create a unified view of the field by replaying its entire evolution at an accelerated rate, giving students the opportunity to become sophisticated generalists"<p><a href="https://www.eecs.mit.edu/academics-admissions/academic-information/subject-updates-spring-2020/6s897" rel="nofollow">https://www.eecs.mit.edu/academics-admissions/academic-infor...</a>
wow. setup and hold times have been demoted to 'demystification only' and not something that is part of the formal curriculum. when I helped teach this course in the 90's, it was a major section and if you could not answer basic questions about synchronous clock discipline, you could not get an A. It was as important as stack-based calling conventions.<p>I mean, I guess most 'computer science' folks today can have a fecund and profitable career and have never heard of these concepts, but... I hope some people still wonder, why do we have clock speeds, and what other alternatives might exist?
This seems very comprehensive and beautifully comprehensible.<p>It reminds me closely of <i>The Elements of Computing Systems</i> and its companion web-based incarnation <i>Nand2Tetris</i> available at <a href="https://www.nand2tetris.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.nand2tetris.org/</a>
It seems MIT changes the url:<p><a href="https://6004.mit.edu/web/fall19FA19/resources/lectures" rel="nofollow">https://6004.mit.edu/web/fall19FA19/resources/lectures</a>
Last time I looked at MIT 6.004 the lecture slides seemed like they were useless without the speaker but there were no videos so I moved on.<p>Looks like there's been an update since so will take another look...
I kind of like their Minispec HDL - I don't think I've seen it before though I guess it derives from Bluespec. I have always liked Wirth's Lola as well.<p>Verilog and VHDL are serviceable, but I think there is an advantage to having a simple, friendly syntax without the verbosity and overhead of VHDL.<p>I also liked how Wirth's course involved running on FPGA hardware. It looks like you might be able to do that in the MIT course as well although I didn't see specific labs for it.