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The following are some thoughts I had on a progression of teachings to lead children to an understanding of CPUs and computer architecure. The point is to demystify the concepts that translate high/low voltages into the games they play.
Emphasise that each stroke is just a line representing 1.
Show first unoptimised lists of strokes, then groups of five where the 5th stroke is simply diagonal.
Emphasise that the optimisation makes it easier to see (this relates to grouping bits into bytes)
Show the decimal system up to hundreds.
Emphasise the 'alphabet' of 10 digits.
Teach what happens when we run out of digits in a column.
Draw parallels with the binary system.
Emphasise the reduced alphabet.
Teach what happens when we run out of digits in a column, and relate this to the more familiar decimal system.
This would ideally use a prop such as a row of pushbuttons with corresponding LEDs.
Show that a switch has two states like the binary 'alphabet'.
Show that a row of switches is like a binary number.
Emphasise the on/off nature of a switch corresponds with 1 and 0 in binary numbers. Briefly introduce the idea of high/low voltages, but don't dwell on it - the implementation is not so important..
This would ideally use a prop with LEDs, as above, but with an extra reset button. The point is simply to show that the binary value can be held after it has been set - we start to move thinking from physically controlled values to electronically controlled values.
Show that a switch can hold its value.
Show that a button can reset a value.
At this point, we've shown the notion of what a register is. This can be used to describe memory, the address and data busses, their control registers, and general purpose registers.
Use video memory as an example, using an 8x8 display.