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by Jtsummers 1519 days ago
So your title and comment suggest two slightly different things. For "how computers work?" I recommend Code by Petzold (higher level, good book) and The Elements of Computing Systems by Nisan and Schocken (also available here: https://www.nand2tetris.org/). The latter is project based and has you develop a computer starting at NAND gates and working up. It can be run through at a good clip while still learning a lot if you're a moderately experienced developer.

EDIT: Per Amazon there's a second edition of Code coming out at some point, but no date that I've been able to find.

I've also got a copy of, but not yet read, Ideas That Created the Future: Classic Papers of Computer Science edited by Harry R. Lewis, the contents are in chronological order with the most recent in 1979. It has 46 different papers on computing, being largely historical this ought to be a decent starting point as well.
2 comments
leohonexus 1519 days ago
I’d also add the book “But How Do It Know?” from J. Clark Scott as a fantastic primer, building from gates to RAM and CPU, to a simple bootloader and assembly programming. It comes with a CPU simulator on the book’s website so you could make sense of what you’re learning - and being a light read you could reasonably finish it in a week.

http://www.buthowdoitknow.com

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Tmkly 1519 days ago
yeah I'm not entirely sure what I want. Thanks for these suggestions, will take a look. nand2tetris looks cool!
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swagtricker 1517 days ago
If you want pacing & support for Nand2Tetris, Coursera has it split into two courses. I've done the first from NAND gates to a working CUP & assembler and can testify it's worthy. Coursera loves to have content sales, so if you're not in a rush you can pick it up for cheap and have their (petty yet ego boosting) certificate of completion to read over one morning with you Cheerios (and then put away in a drawer to be forgotten). Here's the two links:

Part I - https://www.coursera.org/learn/build-a-computer Part II - https://www.coursera.org/learn/nand2tetris2

Some day I hope to pick up Part II, but Part I was still a lot of fun!

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