Digital Electronics & Computer Architecture

This course is a friendly introduction to digital electronics for beginners. Together, we will explore how the key building blocks of digital systems work and step by step assemble a simple computer with registers, a common bus, ALU, memory, and an instruction set.

You can consider this course as a "first step" into the world of electronics and computer architecture. We will start with the basics of physics at the atomic level and gradually move on to popular analog components, relays, vacuum tubes, transistors, logic gates, memory devices, arithmetic circuits, control logic, and many other topics. All learning is accompanied by practical assignments and real circuits that we will create throughout the course.

By the end of the course, you will have a clear understanding of how a simple computer works: from the processes occurring at the electron level within the hardware to the design of a computing machine capable of storing, loading, and processing data.

Required Tools

We use only free and cross-platform programs—such as EveryCircuit, Falstad Circuit Simulator, Autodesk TinkerCad, and Logisim Evolution. The course also uses breadboards for assembling small circuits, but you will be able to successfully complete the lessons without them.

Who the Course is For

The course does not require any prior knowledge. If you’ve always wanted to know how a computer is structured "under the hood" at the most basic level, this is definitely the place for you!

The course is specially designed for beginners and will be particularly beneficial for programmers who want to finally understand what happens inside the computing machines they work with every day.