lexu on Nostr: Just finished reading this book yesterday (Code by Charles Petzold). It starts pretty ...

Just finished reading this book yesterday (Code by Charles Petzold).

It starts pretty interesting with the discussion of the early binary codes, such as Morse and Braille, and a refresher on how electricity works. Then the book does something they failed really hard at at my school: showing how electromagnets are actually useful (you can make telegraph relays with them). Then Petzold shows how to make logic gates with relays, and an 8-bit computer with gates. Unfortunately, towards the end it gets much more boring: discussions of machine code, assembly, operating systems, and so on -- but among these very little you wouldn't know already.