Problems understanding the material

Posted by lata22 on
URL: http://nand2tetris-questions-and-answers-forum.52.s1.nabble.com/Problems-understanding-the-material-tp4031969.html

Hii all,

I think I have some fundamental problem understanding the whole gate-logic or something...
I did the whole of project 1 by looking at the truth tables and figuring out which combination of gates I should use. For the multiplexer I used the disjunctive normal form to determine how to connect the gates though I find the de-multiplexer a little "eh..".

Doing the first part of the second project was kind of ok, had to look up for help on the web and then I just got stuck with the ALU. I had no problems doing project 4 with the assembler, so I guess that hardware is my problem.

I have no idea which chips to use when and more importantly WHY to use them.
I don't really understand the contribution of each one of them (I mean, if I see some requirement, I don't have that "ohh! I should use that and that chips" thinking ). And I don't really understand how if-else statements could be translated to connections via chips and so on.
I am literally panicking here because it's a uni-course and my grade is dependent on that.

I looked up some answers that other people posted, but it didn't contribute to my understanding at all.

Does anyone have some tools or tips that I could use?
I have read the first 4 chapters of the book and sat down in lecture =/

thanks