Online course: Build your own simulated computer, assembler, lang, OS, & game

For the people who have read the book / taken the course:<p>I can see how a simple assembler and a simple game can be built quickly, but Computer Architecture, Compilers and Operating Systems are usually separate, semester-length courses. (And not among the simplest.) So what is he giving up on, in order to compress all this into a single course?

I actually took this course in person when Professor Schocken visited Harvard. It is a fantastic course that is extremely valuable for everyone from those who only have basic programming skills to advanced CS students (I took it as a senior after already having taken classes on operating system design and programming languages). In the class we did jump around a bit in the later chapters, and so I feel like one could probably approach the material in many different ways.<p>The exercises are very straight-forward and will not be extremely time-consuming for those who are already skilled at CS, but the course is best treated like a tour through CS rather than an in-depth study of any particular area.

I acquired this book when it was published in 2008, and I firmly believe my CS education would have been better for having had it several years before that. It's a very well-constructed course that can be completed by an amateur at a casual pace, or by a hardcore student in a couple of weeks of dedicated work.

This book is great.<p>This book certiantly is not a crash course. I have been working through it in my spare time since I got it a couple of years ago. I have been taking my time because I was going through school when I got it and couldn't make time for it. Now seeing this article I should pick it back up again.<p>I suggest though that everybody resist the urge to find the answers rather than doing them yourself. It's quite rewarding when you figure things out. There isn't one way to do it.<p>The only complaint I have is that when you start getting into higher functions they recommend you not use the pieces you built up for performance reasons. Personally I would like to figure these out but perhaps that should be left for a later day.

This reminds me a lot of "Code" by Charles Petzold, but framed in the context of actually building the pieces rather than just reading/thinking about them.<p>I wish there were more hours in the day...

Thanks to everyone for your great comments, and for enrolling in the course. I have been looking to learn something like this from a long time, but lacked the community to be able to learn with peers.<p>That, and a desire to make a little contribution to the state of learning &#38; education prompted me to create diycomputerscience.com<p>There were over a 100 registrations in the past day.<p>Thanks to everyone... you guys really made my day !

Got a print copy of the book two days ago. Worked through most of the first chapter, and really loving it so far.<p>No CS background and a little (~1 year off and on) programming experience. Though having taken a symbolic logic course in college is definitely making the first chapter easier! :-)

I've been looking for such a course/material since I've started learning CS. This loks like a great way of introducing my friends to CS and explaining what the Computer Science is all about. From NAND gates -&#62; to games in one course? YES!

We teach this class formally in one semester at the Colorado School of Mines, where it is now a required part of the CS curriculum.<p>I use both Code and TECS books together. It is an incredibly effective class. I've found many students in CS curricula "drift" through the topics without really grasping anything, only to graduate feeling they haven't really learned much.<p>This material takes the essence of numerous CS topics and educates the reader by doing and building, rather than only reading and theorizing.<p>If you are a developer and don't know what happens when you execute a program, you really need this book (and CODE by Petzold).

Well there goes my weekend... I've been looking for something to help me step through this sequence, trying to read OSDev and the TinyVM source and the x86 handbook all at once trying to create an idea of how my computer actually works has just created a fried brain!

This book is great, and finally available in Kindle format too.

The actual link to chapters and pdf files <a href="http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/plan.html" rel="nofollow">http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/plan.html</a>

Original source: <a href="http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/" rel="nofollow">http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/</a>

There is a major problem with this teaching approach: every module is a pre-requisite for the next one. Therefore, if a student fails one module, he will have to spend time fixing it instead of moving forward.

thanks, i watched the google tech talk video about course, this course is really helpful for cs students

This is great! Thanks for the link!