Transistors to toys: teaching systems to freshmen

How should we introduce students to the art of system building, and when are students ready to start designing and building interesting systems? In this talk, I describe an experimental course at the University of Michigan that teaches systems to freshmen by having them conceive of, design, and build the hardware and software of a microprocessor-based educational toy. Students in this course build their own microprocessor on an FPGA using a hardware description language. They then write the complete software stack for their toy in assembly language, including device drivers for numerous I/O devices, a simple file system, a graphical user interface, digital audio processing, and application software. By building a substantial system involving hardware, system software, and application software, students gain an appreciation for the complexity and beauty of building computing systems.