Nand to Tetris: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles

A hands-on synthesis of key topics from digital architectures and software engineering in one course. Starting with the most elementary logic gate, Nand, students build a general-purpose computer system that can run Tetris, and any other program. You will learn how computers work, how they are constructed, and how to plan and build large-scale systems. The hardware platform (logic gates, RAM, CPU) is built in a simple Hardware Description Language, learned in the course; The software hierarchy (assembler, compiler, basic OS) is built in Java. Assignments are done in pairs and are supported by extensive scaffolding and partial implementations.