Every generation blames the one before...

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rboeck

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Two years ago, my son (13 years at this time) asked me, how a computer calculates floating point numbers. Then he begun to start some projects in minecraft – yesterday he published an youtube video about his last creation: an scientific calculator based on a self constructed cpu and alu with a simplified type of machine code. This calculator is really working, some operations need 15 minutes.


In my mind I heard this song: Every generation blames the one before… but now in my mind I am looking for the best way of education. His dream is, to become a cpu designer at one of the big players. What do you think, any hints and tips for his education?
 
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An Schi

An Schi

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I didn't have any coding experience and my way of self-education was AppInventor -> b4a.
AppInventor was made for kids/youth to learn and understand the principles of coding (not coding itself). You can build android apps by connecting code-puzzle-pieces. The puzzle-part sounds like a childtoy, but you can build complex apps with it. There are limitations though (the last time i checked there were no backround services for example or no chance to implement push notifications). You can take a look at this for example: http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/ai2/molemash.html. This is one of the early beginner tutorials and it creates a mole-mash game.
After building several apps for myself with AppInventor, i was able to jump into b4a (of course with tutorials and the forum and the beginners guide etc). But i had understandings of views vs code, events, if/else, loops, timers, etc. Let's say i learned the basic coding stuff there ;)
(On a side note: after AppInventor i tried to learn Java and Eclipse - but i gave up, cause it was too hard and complicated for me, it was only frustrating and no fun at all.)
 
Cableguy

Cableguy

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From your text i found myself thinking... "If only my dad had that insight when I was growing up"...

While not in university age, I would recommend some good guidance, with hands on approach to modern electronics.
Arduino kits, raspberry pi, etc...
Doing a few dad/son projects that get to mom's nerves and scares the sh*t out of the cat!
 
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RVP

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Electrical engineering or computer engineering. Although with the rapid evolution of the technology and some of the articles I have read, he might want to consider biology or physics:)
 
Widget

Widget

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Cableguy said:
From your text i found myself thinking... "If only my dad had that insight when I was growing up"...

While not in university age, I would recommend some good guidance, with hands on approach to modern electronics.
Arduino kits, raspberry pi, etc...
Doing a few dad/son projects that get to mom's nerves and scares the sh*t out of the cat!
Click to expand...

Yeah, getting your hands working on hardware will make a person appreciate what computers can do. I remember building a 4 banger calculator (+ - / *) using nothing but NAND gates on a breadboard hooked up to LED's. The wiring bundle was as thick as my wrist and the wires were all the same color! One loose wire and the whole thing would stop working. I had around 90 minutes to get it working as a lab experiment. After that, I never looked at a calculator the same way again.
 
mrred128

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When I was a starving electronics tech student in the very early 80s, I hand coded an assembler/monitor for my sorely un-expanded vic 20. All scribed on lose paper and entered in steps by had.......first the monitor and the monitor to enter the assembler. My father pleaded with me to stop wasting my time and finish my collage first. Not all advice is good.

RBoeck, looks like your son actually understands the beasts. Math chips were a luxury I never got to use until much later in life. That will lead to greatness that people around him will only get to struggle with. Most people today don't have any history at all and tend to make mistakes us old guys have learned from years ago.
 
thedesolatesoul

thedesolatesoul

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rboeck said:
In my mind I heard this song: Every generation blames the one before… but now in my mind I am looking for the best way of education. His dream is, to become a cpu designer at one of the big players. What do you think, any hints and tips for his education?
Click to expand...
Congratulations, you must be very proud.

There are actually a number of routes depending on what he wants to do. There are experts in every field.
Strong Physics/Maths can lead you into Datapath engineering which is about optimizing algorithms or hardware like the FPU he designed above.
Any electronics/computer/electrical engineering can help but with a strong affinity to microelectronic design (digital design) if he wants to go into Hardware Design or CPU Architecture.
At the moment in terms of jobs he will have to move to wherever the cpu design centre for the company is. Intel/AMD/ARM/Apple/Google/HiSilicon/Samsung/Qualcomm/MIPS are the ones that do core/custom cpu design. There are others too ofcourse.
 
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rboeck

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Thanks for your words - it's clear, each father is proud about his childs. But it is a mixed feeling - i teached myself basic in 1982 and have not realy left this way. My son startet with c++ and ruby, after three month of learning he made his own version of cmath, in ruby he wrote an a* algorythmus and an labyrith generator in few hours. So sometimes its realy harder to be proud and motivated for my own work...
It's clear for him that his later job will lead to arm, amd or intel and their departments.
In three year he is able to go to university and so its time to think, which one would be the best. In uk would be cambridge one of the best high schools, my son told me, that intel has its own university and in noth america you find high schools like MIT and Stanford, which are extremly expensive.
But you can imagine, that this way would need very much money and i have no idea, if this is worth the money?
 
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AHilton

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As for looking into the financial cost of USA colleges/universities, read up on scholarships. If your son can demonstrate a real aptitude for the work and there is a financial need, you can find scholarships to make up much (if not all) of the cost. But, it takes a lot of planning and work to find and apply for those.

Is it worth the money to go to a top-end technical college? Absolutely, yes, if your son can succeed. The best companies (as well as the tier 2 and 3 companies) actively recruit and hire directly from those schools.
 
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