This is the greatest course I ever came across. Together along with part 2 it connects all dots and goes beyond abstractions to show how a computer works. It is the best course that can teach an electronics or electrical engineer how the HWs and SWs interact in a machine. It indeed goes from building an nand gate to a fully functional primitive application.

This is hands down one of the best courses I have ever done. It tears down the layers of abstraction between your programs and your computer's hardware. It's a project centred course meaning you get to build very cool things every week.

I'm blown away that I just finished building a computer that can play pong... it has a display and keyboard inputs!

It was a great course. It fulfilled its role in demystifying the internal parts of a computer. It was a excellent idea to present Digital Circuits through a Hardware Description Language (HDL). It was rewarding to get in touch with Assembly language in the processes of "building" the CPU as well as while coding the Assembler. Thank you!

I had so much fun following the course and I actually feel I've learned a lot.

Not only the course videos are helpful and easy to follow but also the "perspective units" were also very interesting that I watched all the videos.

I definitely will move on to part 2 of this course and I am 100% sure that I will get all I want in part 2 also.

This is one of the best courses that I have come across. I had always wanted to learn computer science in a continuous fashion . I wanted to know how all the different subjects come together to make a computer. This course was a boon for me. It showed me how to connect the dots among various subjects. Iam looking forward to part 2 now.

Has been a great course addressing a lot of basic questions. Very well-structured.

However, I do feel that more light could have been shed upon how the instructions in 0's and 1's in the text file (here the .hack files) are actually given to a computer. Perhaps it could be addressed in one of the QA sessions at the end of each module.

This is absolutely the best course on Coursera and by far the most unique. The instructors are engaging and clear with what they teach, the quality of the lectures are superb and the amount of supplementary material and resources made available are vast. I wish the instructors would create more courses. On to Part 2 of the course!

This is an excellent course that is very well-designed to include all the essential details and exclude the inessential ones. I recommend it very highly, especially to those who have some form of technical education, but may never have learned these topics in computer design that are needed to really get from logic gate to CPU.

This was a fantastic course. I'd bought the textbook a few years ago after reading about it on HackerNews, but never had the motivation to work through it until I discovered this class on Coursera. I feel like I now have a much better grasp of what's going on inside of a computer, after having programmed for over thirty years!

I have always wanted to know how a computer actually works. This course helped me to deep dive into the low level implementation of a computer. In the meanwhile, the projects are perfectly well organized for better understandings. Overall, I'd like to recommend this course to literally everyone who is interested in computers.

One of the best courses I have ever been through. If you like learning along with getting hands-on experience and the joy of building something ground-up, this course is definitely for you. I like how the designs are so simple yet completely functional. Thoroughly enjoyed making all the projects especially week 6 (Assembler).

Great course, but tough. I'd suggest reading the relevant chapters from the professors' book 'The Elements of Computing Systems' (chapters available for free on the professors' course website) in addition to listening to the lectures. I also read 'Code' by Charles Petzold as I took the course and found it a useful supplement.

A wonderful course. The tasks are not very hard, but challenging enough for a student to get things working. Even for auditing students, they provide ways to verify the knowledge. I think they completely achieved their goal of demystifying how computers work and are built. Thank you for the opportunity to attend this course.

While some of earlier topics were a bit rushed, Week 6 videos were just about explaining the assembler algorithm to the programmer, which is something programmer should invent himself, it takes away the fun, while providing no further insight into the topic. Overall great course, but it did not go very deep into some topics.

A fantastic course that should be considered as a requirement for any one working as a software developer. The tutors did an excellent job here, the course material was clear, and the assignments were fun and rewarding.

I can honestly say I've now built my own computer from simple Nand gates and it was fun and educational.

Excellent course, I could understand from a simple logic gate how a computer hardware is built. Very useful for both student and professionals in Computer field.

The presentation was to the point very clear and crisp. Both the faculty did an amazing job in presentng the material of the course as well as the assignments.

This course was amazing. I have been using computers, and programming, for 30 years (not full time). Now I finally have a deep understanding of what is going on under the hood. I have a new appreciation for the 1's and 0's that are machine language. The instructors were fantastic. I highly recommend this course.

Even though I knew quite a bit about the later parts of the course, I still learned a lot from them. Not to mention that HDL and hardware parts thought me a lot as I lacked some knowledge on that front. Overall a great course that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in learning everything about computers.

Excellent course! I have taken many in Coursera, and this one is by far the one I have enjoyed the most, not only because of the topic but also because of the professors. Both are great communicators and provided very well prepared classes and materials. 100% recommended, looking forward to starting part 2.

It's an excellent practical approach to understand the inner workings of a computer at a very low level. The instructors teach at a comfortable pace and cover in great detail even the simplest of topics. More light could have been shone on how and why the control bits produce the desired output in the ALU.

Nice project and interesting . The learning curve is not too steep for a beginner and the course itself can be considered as a solid funding block for a programmer interested in low level programming. The project which is spread over the 6 modules is an on going application of the abstraction principle.

Loved this course. Great progression from concept to concept. Huge feeling of accomplishment at each step of the way as you create a working, functioning 16-bit computer. Can't wait to do Part II. Fast, responsive help from the mentors as well. I was always able to get the answers to my questions.

Really good course, made with care. I learned a lot.

Learning and thinking all the steps to go from a NAnd gate (and a DFF) all the way to a CPU hardware.

The best part for me the last project, where I coded a full Assembler that output machine language that I could run directly on the CPU i built!

I recommend this course for anyone who's learning about digital design and computer architecture. Now when I look to other courses I understand the material very well and easier than before. It took me long time to understand this and when I took this course, everything since become more easier.

The professors do a great job. The material is clearly presented. It will clearly show how computers are built up from scratch. The assignments help us learn. The support for students in the forum helps with any problems understanding the material and/or completing the assignments.