21 Nov
2007
21 Nov
'07
3:37 p.m.
--- Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net> wrote:
Or a breadboard and a bunch of parts from Radio Shack
(if they still sell them). Forest Mimm's Engineer's
Mini-Notebooks used to be a good way to learn how to
throw some goofy circuits together (555 stuff, opto-
stuff). You won't find them anymore though. Perhaps a
2nd hand store.
If you're looking to teach solid theory, that's
another matter (duh).
Jules Richardson wrote:
at the risk of making you hurl I guess, Inside the
IBM PC by Peter Norton. I doubt you'd keep a 9 year
old captivated starting him out with logic gates (of
course some kids take to that though). You have to
start *higher level*. This would give him a very
satisfactory understanding of what's under the hood. I
still don't know what goes on inside a cpu (nor most
of the chips on a pc mobo). He goes into some low
level little hacks, snooping out bios signatures, all
that jazz. IMHO a wonderful first book. I didn't read
it at 9, I was 19. Can't say if it's too advanced for
a 9 year old. But y'all can read it together!
Next book - IBM PC Assembler Language and
Programming, Peter Abel FIRST EDITION. You cannot ask
for a better text on assembler if you asked me (so you
didn't ask me, well I done told you anyway!). Very
righteous tutorial on binary.
As for rudimentary gates and such, yer on your own.
Nothing comes to mind, but there's tons out there.
So the boy (9yr. old) was asking last night about
how computers work...
any recommendations for good books for learning
the basics from? I think
Phooee. PCs are arguably the best tools to learn on.
It's such a vanilla architecture. Some earlier 8-bit
UK and Yank machines wouldn't be a bad 2nd choice, but
regarding media and such (he'll want to save programs
remember) it couldn't be easier. You can stick a 3.5"
HD drive in just about any peecee, even if it sees it
as a 720k.
Xbox1s are real cheap these days besides. As he moves
up, get him Huang's "Hacking the Xbox". It's a great
book in so many ways if you want to learn how to
snoop/scope-out that sort of thing.
I started out with a Sinclair Spectrum and its
BASIC manual, but I
really don't recall now where I found out
about
the fundamental building
blocks of [typical] computers and how a CPU
worked. There must be a good
'classic' "how computers work"
type of book which
avoids going on about
> PCs and Xboxen... I figure I
should find him one of those kids
electronics projects kits
too (I think that was where I got my first
exposure to logic gates from
> at about the same age) and also some old 8-bit
machine to play with.
absolutely nothing wrong with that. But the pc is a
venerable well documented architecture, and there are
a few groovy boxes across the pond that break the mold
somewhat to make it more interesting (hectic?). LIKE
THE RESEARCH MACHINES NIMBUS! If you can find one. I
can't.
Frankly though, I don't see how an English home could
be called one w/o Clive Sugar's 628?. And Yo, cassette
tapes are still easier to find then floppy disks!
It seems like you want to teach a number of
different things. Although
they interact, I think the learning of each is
separable.
That's why you should start at a suitable level of
*abstraction* if you will. Learn about the innards
from *a distance*. Don't get too deep (i.e complex)
at
the get-go. Boredom might set in.
There is the electronics aspect ...
then there is the low level machine code and binary
aspect ...
then there is the higher level programming language
aspect
BASIC is a staple for the would be hacker...
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