[ndeine]

I haven't messed around with x86 enough to know whether it is actually somehow easier than the ARM stuff, but I certainly agree with you that CPUs are damn complicated.

I loaded up the datasheet for the M3's when typing up this reply. 384 pages. Contrast that with the TI 74181 ALU datasheet from the days of old: 18 pages, most of which are just detailed diagrams of the distances between the pinouts. The logic diagrams fit on a single page. You can build a simple CPU using one of these machines in a few hours in your basement.

Hardware is only going to get more complicated. At what point does it become so complicated that no one person can reasonably understand how a computer works "under the hood", even from an abstract level?

[icantthinkofone]

An ALU is only a part of a CPU while a M3 is a full blown CPU so you can't compare the two.

[Gravityloss]

Maybe then there could be an easy to use (for a human) virtual machine at some level in between...

[collyw]

Is that not the role of the operating system?

[amirouche]

still you have the exact specification maybe with bugs.