Computers! We use them, we love them, we can't live without them. But...
f course you know - more or less - what’s inside a computer. And maybe you know - more less than more - what’s inside those chips: Switches. Small switches. VERY small switches. To give you an idea: In the year 2019 Chip-Manufacturer Intel cramed 100 million of these little fellows (called transistors) in one square Millimeter (source), that's a single dot in the headline above! And you know what? The 6502-CPU, published in 1975 and heart of some of the most famous computers of all time, consists of only 3510 of them - so nowadays it could be build so small that it is INVISIBLE! But how can things so tiny that you might inhale hundreds of them without even noticing know that eight bit make a byte ...and what a "byte" even is?! That “LDA” doesn’t stand for Lithium Diisopropylamide but for loading something into something called accumulator?
Well, you surely suspect it: Switches don’t know anything. They don’t even switch without help. To understand their workings we have to look how computers tick at the deepest level. And how to program them. Even in the roughest way possible beyond “0” and “1”: Assembler. An ancient language the eldest and wisest fear to speak. But only in assembler you are at eye level with the mightiest machine mankind has ever created. Worried? Don't be. This will be fun!
Well, you surely suspect it: Switches don’t know anything. They don’t even switch without help. To understand their workings we have to look how computers tick at the deepest level. And how to program them. Even in the roughest way possible beyond “0” and “1”: Assembler. An ancient language the eldest and wisest fear to speak. But only in assembler you are at eye level with the mightiest machine mankind has ever created. Worried? Don't be. This will be fun!
History |
Learning by looking back: The binary system was discerned no later than 1605, the first program was written 1843... History helps a lot to grasp the basic principles of computing!
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T.A.P.E. |
Learning by doing: We search cryptic data in an ancient game (1983! On audio-tape!), excavate and convert it so we can desecrate the Lost city of Antesher with modern 3D software!
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Code |
Learning by recreating: We reconstruct games from the golden age, the 1980s. Without help from Game Engines. Only (well, mostly) nimble fingers on chunky keyboards. Yay!
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Nutshells |
You need to be a genius to understand computers? Hah! The basic concepts need only a few meager sentences that fit on a single sheet of paper.
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Footnotes:
* The organisation that builds - at last - the machine that Ada Lovelace wrote the worlds first algorithm for in 1843: plan28.org
Picture left: Blender + own picture + Affinity Photo
Picture right: C64 Screenshots + Blender, Spreadshirt
* The organisation that builds - at last - the machine that Ada Lovelace wrote the worlds first algorithm for in 1843: plan28.org
Picture left: Blender + own picture + Affinity Photo
Picture right: C64 Screenshots + Blender, Spreadshirt