ESP Biography

The hardware in modern computers offers a grab-bag of simple logical and arithmetic operations --- like the "add two numbers" operation or the "remember this value" operation --- as building blocks for creating the computer's more sophisticated tasks, including the task of executing software programs. Each of these simple operations is created by connecting together even simpler components called Boolean gates. These Boolean gates are functions that take two input bits and produce one output bit --- very simple animals. In fact, Boolean gates are finally simple enough that we can use electrical current and semiconducting materials to build them. This is how all of our computational tasks can eventually be carried out by actual physical machines. In this course, we'll learn how Boolean gates are built, and how to use them to make some of the simple operations: adders, multiplexers, and simple memory.