“ Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software” by Charles Petzold and “The Elements of Computing Systems” by Noam Nisan and Shimon Shocken are both a great introduction.

I've read both books and done the Nand2Tetris course.

I think Code by Petzold is decent in that it's a book you can read in bed etc. but it spends a long time discussing mechanical relays as an analogue and later discusses various processors in depth.

I think Nand2Tetris is slightly better in that it focuses on what I'd consider to be the most important stuff, but it's an actual course and requires significantly more effort.

Nand2Tetris is probably the best course I've ever done though, including my university studies in Physics and ML. It's fun and you learn loads.

1. Read Code by Charles Petzold.

https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Developer-Prac...

2. Learn C.

3. Learn whatever interests you next.

Can someone who has read both compare this to Code by Charles Petzold?

https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Developer-Prac...

You have a handful of low-level languages listed. It doesn't make sense to try to put those through a JavaScript lens. Rather, pick one to start with and build some programs with it. You should quickly start to see how memory, I/O, etc, are handled.

I would also recommend the book "Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software" by Charles Petzold as a general introduction.

There is no quicker way to get me disinterested in a book than the words non-fiction. And there is no shot that I am reading a book if I'm not interested in it. I've noticed lately that when I hear or read someone talking about reading (it has come up in a few podcasts I listen to) it often comes up that they are talking about non-fiction. I've read one non-fiction book outside of school[1].

I read for escapism, or to explore other worlds in my imagination. Reading gives me something fantastical to think about. If I want something real to think about I use the internet. Books have never filled that role, and I've never really considered them for it. Am I missing out? Should I try and shake my prejudice against non-fiction?

[1]: Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Author here. They are very different. Code (a fantastic book, by the way) is a technical book that provides an introduction to how computers work from first principles. The Switch is a historical book that describes how the switching components of the first computers evolved in a telecom context (starting from the birth of the telegraph), then were adapted for computing.

There's a bit of crossover insofar as Code uses relays to build an understanding of how digital logic works and has a few brief historical asides. Likewise The Switch provides a few brief technical explanations to help the non-expert reader along. But in general The Switch will not tell you much about how computers work and Code will not tell you much about where they came from.