Last month I started this discussion about The Elements of Computing Systems on the fonc[3] mailing list:
http://www.mail-archive.com/fonc@vpri.org/msg01614.htmlYou can follow the thread if this interests you.
For more information about the FONC/STEPS project, see:
[1]
http://www.vpri.org/pdf/tr2010004_steps10.pdf[2]
http://www.vpri.org/html/writings.php[3] Fundementals Of New Computing