Project // Digital Odyssey - Part 0: Introduction

Project // Digital Odyssey 
From 'Bits' to 'Hello World'... and Beyond.

Part 0: Introduction

The epic poem Odyssey, attributed to the Greek author Homer, describes how the famous hero of Greek mythology Odysseus is led astray by winds on his travel home after fighting in the Trojan war. He sails the seas for ten long years and experiences several adventures on his way before finally returning back to his kingdom Ithaca. Although the topic 'digital technology and computers' contained enough information to easily fill a ten year journey, I plan to get this first project of my blog done in a little shorter time period. Nevertheless, I gave it the title 'Digital Odyssey' as I hope that at least some adventure awaits us, as we sail the vast seas of numbers, logic and language.

Project Digital Odyssey will give you a very compressed run-down of the working principles of a computer from theory to hands-on examples like 'building a CPU'. Later some digital architecture and programming principles will be discussed. This is not intended to be a lecture. I just want to share my sight on things and discuss some aspects of the topic I think are crucial for getting a better understanding of how our digital world is ticking. The blog is directed to beginners as well as experts. I try to keep this as entertaining as possible and will sprinkle in additional information or take detours as I see fit. Expect this to be a journey with some digression... a little Odyssey.

Table of contents

Charpter I - Hardware and Theory
   Part 1: Bits and p-adic Number Systems