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Bebop to the Boolean Boogie: An Unconventional Guide to Electronics?
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Absolutely essential for CMIS 412, but I don't think that's part of the major requirements anymore. Otherwise you don't need to have a firm grasp for anything other than your own personal enrichment.
Anyways, if you want to learn what the class teaches, try picking up Beebop to the Boolean Boogie, which does a much better and more thorough job of covering the same stuff. I think it was actually listed as one of the "additional reading" things in one of the textbook sections, and I have found it enormously helpful.
I highly recommend the course nand2tetris if you're interested in this sort of thing. From there, look into learning HDL (VHDL/Verilog) perhaps on an FPGA development board. If you are interested in books, I highly recommend Bebop Boolean Boogie Unconventional Electronics. That book will walk you through all aspects of electrical and digital design at a practical level.
If you want a digestible book to cover computer architecture concepts, Bebop to the Boolean Boogie: An Unconventional Guide to Electronics is a favorite of mine. I found it significantly more useful than any of the true textbooks I've read on the subject.
I don't know how essential this particular aspect of CS is to you with your desired goals, but if you're trying to fill this niche it's a great resource.
Bebop to Boolean Boogie is pretty good. Very easy and fun book to read. Covers a ton of great entry level topics.
Then move towards something more FPGA specific like
~~Knowing C will probably hurt you more than help you. Forget what you know about C when learning Verilog.~~ You need to approach learning Verilog in a different manner. Verilog is not another top-down procedural language expressing instructions one after another. There are some general programming tenets that still hold true, and attention to detail in regards to syntax is important. But forget about line-by-line procedural execution because that's not how these hardware description languages work. You need to learn DIGITAL DESIGN before you learn Verilog....
EDIT: for clarity and to tighten up my thoughts.
Honestly, I would never recommend this sort of course to a beginner. For one, there are too many things that can go wrong which would make the learning experience frustrating, but in addition to this, FPGAs are generally a pretty big pain in the rear until you get familiar with them. And, even once you are, they are still a bear. Each family is unique in a variety of ways, the toolchains are pretty terrible, and HDL programming is not at all intuitive without a decent foundation in digital logic, state machines, timing analysis, boolean algebra and probably a few other things I'm missing. And that's ignoring the fact that you have to buy hardware and maybe even software to use them. FPGAs are super fun once you have some experience, but no bueno starting out.
Instead, I'd strongly recommend nand2tetris over this (note, the first half is on coursera for free). It's a rather short course that you could likely get through in semester. The course starts with basic digital logic and shows you how to build a working computer running a real OS from nothing but NAND gatesl. The entire course is done in simulation. This is great as you can focus entirely on the academics. I've recommended this course to novices and experts and never had someone tell me they didn't enjoy it.
By the way, if you are also interested in the physical side of things (electrical engineering), I'd highly recommend "[Bebop to the Boolean Boogie: An Unconventional Guide to Electronics](amazon.com/Bebop-Boolean-Boogie-Unconventional-Electronics/dp/1856175073)"
Definitely
Books, I really liked Bebop to the Boolean Boogie and FPGA Prototyping by Verilog/VHDL examples.
http://www.amazon.com/Bebop-Boolean-Boogie-Third-Edition/dp/1856175073
http://www.amazon.com/FPGA-Prototyping-Verilog-Examples-Spartan-3/dp/0470185325
"Bebop to the Boolean Boogie" isn't bad for the Digital Side. About $18 for used:
http://www.amazon.com/Bebop-Boolean-Boogie-Third-Unconventional/dp/1856175073
Bebop to the Boolean Boogie. A very fun and informative read.
Bebop to the Boolean Boogie. Amazing book by a great author and a fun read.
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