CA

Computer Architecture

advanced

What actually happens when code runs.

Beneath every language sits the same machine: a CPU fetching instructions, registers, caches, and RAM. Understanding the hardware makes you better in any language — you'll know why arrays beat linked lists in practice, what a cache miss costs, and what 'compiled to machine code' really means. No soldering required.

Performance TuningSystems ProgrammingEmbedded DevicesDebuggingCS Fundamentals
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0/7 lessons

Setup

This is a concepts track — no toolchain to install. To poke at real hardware info and machine code, these commands help (all optional).

Bash
# See your CPU's details:
# Task Manager -> Performance -> CPU
# or:
wmic cpu get name, numberofcores, maxclockspeed

# Explore compiler output for any C code (no install):
# https://godbolt.org

Lessons

1
Bits, Bytes & Binary
Everything in a computer — numbers, text, photos, this webpage — is stored as bi…
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2
The CPU: Fetch, Decode, Execute
A CPU does one conceptually simple thing, billions of times per second: fetch th…
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3
The Memory Hierarchy & Caches
RAM is ~200 cycles away from the CPU. That's an eternity when you execute 4 inst…
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4
From Source Code to Machine Code
You write text; the CPU eats binary instructions. The journeys differ — compiled…
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5
Cores, Threads & Why Free Lunch Ended
CPUs stopped getting dramatically faster per-core around 2005 — physics said no.…
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6
Thinking in Nanoseconds
Great engineers carry a mental price list for operations. Once you know a RAM ac…
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7
Architecture Cheatsheet
The numbers and mental models worth memorizing, on one page.
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