Summary

This chapter began with a brief history of automated computing devices and described significant technological advances that drove leaps in computational capability. A discussion of Moore’s law followed with an assessment of its applicability over past decades and its implications for the future. The basic concepts of computer architecture were introduced through a discussion of the 6502 microprocessor registers and instruction set. The history of computer architecture is fascinating, and I encourage you to explore it further.

The next chapter will introduce digital logic, beginning with the properties of basic electrical circuits and proceeding through the design of digital subsystems used in modern processors. You will learn about logic gates, flip-flops, and digital circuits including multiplexers, shift registers, and adders. The chapter includes an introduction to hardware description languages, which are specialized computer languages used in the design of complex digital devices such as computer processors.