Order of Chapters 4 and 5

[Jonathan Katz]

I am curious as to your decision to place Chapter 4 before Chapter 5. Either way "works", but swapping the order makes slightly more sense to me since the current Chapter 5 continues the hardware theme from Chapters 1-3.

[culchie]

Chapter 4 mentions how it "it is convenient to get acquainted with a new computer system by first seeing some low-level programs written in its machine language" and how this helps "us to understand..why its hardware was designed in certain way".
Would wiring the cpu have been even possible without knowing the machine language, what the various bits stood for etc?

[linuxford]

Jonathan Katz wrote

I am curious as to your decision to place Chapter 4 before Chapter 5. Either way "works", but swapping the order makes slightly more sense to me since the current Chapter 5 continues the hardware theme from Chapters 1-3.

I think I can understand what you are saying and perhaps people learn a bit differently. I have harder time with memorization and seem to favor learning conceptually, and then filling in on the details, although the first three chapters were so well written in the style and choice of ideas, that it went pretty smooth. I am finding that it is helpful to reference chapter 5 portions, while going through chapter 4 as suggested.

I found this amazing book by chance on Amazon, and I am self-studying. So far it has been fantastic, it's cool and crazy that I have built an ALU and all the pieces of the CPU out of Nands. Looking forward to working my way up to the top level.

[added note: having read both chapter 4 and 5 now, I prefer chapter 4 first, I just think referencing chapter 5 can be helpful]