News

Colloquia

From Nand to Tetris in 12 Steps

Shimon Schocken
Efi Arazi School of Computer Science, IDC Herzliya, Israel
Harvard University (visiting)

Thursday, December 8, 2005
JEC 3117 - 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Refreshments at 3:30 p.m.

Abstract:

We present a new course that aims to demystify the integrated function of computer systems, using a hands-on approach. The course synthesizes many abstractions, algorithms, and data structures learned in CS courses, and makes them concrete by building a complete computer system from the ground up. As the semester progresses, we guide the students through a modular series of projects that gradually construct and unit-test a simple hardware platform and a modern software hierarchy, yielding a surprisingly powerful computer system. The hardware projects are done in a simple hardware description language and a hardware simulator supplied by us. The software projects (assembler, VM, and a compiler for a simple object-based language) can be done in any language, using the API's and test programs supplied by us. We also build a mini-OS. The result is a GameBoy-like computer, simulated on the student's PC. We start the course (and this talk) by demonstrating some video games running on this computer, e.g. Tetris and Pong. Building a working computer from Nand gates alone is a thrilling intellectual exercise. It demonstrates the supreme power of recursive ascent, and teaches the students that building computer systems is -- more than anything else -- a triumph of human reasoning. We are able to squeeze all this into a single course since we deal with neither efficiency nor advanced features, leaving these subjects to other courses in the program. The resulting approach is completely self-contained, requiring only programming as a pre-requisite. In the Fall 2005 semester Shimon Schocken is teaching this course at Harvard's CS program, where it is coded CS-101. A book based on the approach was recently published by MIT Press. Joint work with Noam Nisan.

Hosted by: Daniel Freedman (x4785)

For more information:

http://www.idc.ac.il/tecs

Last updated: November 7, 2005