An interactive book
How a modern computer really works, built up from first principles: from a single switch to the programming language you write.
Start with Chapter 1 →Each layer is built only from the layers below it.
Every computer, from the original IBM PC to the phone in your pocket, is built from layers. Each one hides the messy details of the layer beneath and offers something simpler to the layer above. This book climbs that ladder one rung at a time. We never use an idea before we've built it.
You don't just read about each idea, you play with it. Flip switches, wire gates, step a processor one clock tick at a time, and watch an interrupt pause a running program. When we reach real hardware we use x86-64, the architecture that grew out of the IBM PC's 8088, and compare it with RISC-V, a clean modern design.
It's written in the spirit of the classic books, like Peter Norton's Inside the IBM PC, that taught a generation what was going on inside the box. No background is needed, only curiosity.