The Elements lives up to its subtitle, Building a Modern Computer from First Principles, and takes you on a whirlwind tour from logic gates to user applications. In mere 344 pages, you'll learn about digital design, computer architecture, operating systems, assembler, and more. The book's hands-on ascension on the ladder of abstractions effectively presents the workings of a modern computer. It's something that could effectively be taught in primary or high school computer classes. (It might also be considered too low-level and a higher level course, such as 'Python turtles', be given instead.)
Below are some of the solutions for each chapter. Note that not all are fully optimized/minimized. For instance, checking for equality likely can't be done in fewer than 11 instructions below. Yet not all solutions have been as carefully thought out.
@SP
AM=M-1
D=M
A=A-1
D=D-M
M=-1 # equal
@END
D;JEQ
@SP
A=M-1
M=0 # not equal
(END)
- Boolean logic
- Boolean arithmetic
- Sequential logic
- Machine language
- Computer architecture (Hack)
- Assembler
- Virtual machine - stack arithmetic
- Virtual machine - flow control
- High level language (Jack)
- The compiler - syntax analysis
- The compiler - code generation
- The operating system (Sack)