not sure if "digital circuit design" is exactly what I'm aiming for, but someone can tell me and I'll edit it if another name matches better.
Basically, circuit design interest me a lot. I like the idea of working with AND OR NOT etc gates and building things with them. I've been wanting to build a CPU for quite a few years now, but I lack the knowledge. I'm fairly decent at programming however, so I can think "logically", but with circuit design it all is very difficult for me to understand past simple adders and such.
So, I'm looking for a beginner's book on the subject. I plan on doing all design and testing in a simulator such as Logisim, but being shown how to actually put circuits together on a breadboard out of gates(or even transistors and such) would be a definite plus, but I wouldn't want for that to be the focus of it all.
My end result hopefully is to build a CPU in a simulator. So, tell me what book(s) I need to buy to get there for someone who is a novice at electronics and a decent computer programmer.
Best Answer
You might find it interesting to look at the open courseware site for the MIT 6.004 lecture/lab course. Look at both the lecture slides and the labs.
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/6-004-computation-structures-spring-2009/
I'm not familiar with the content of the 2009 version (having taken it back when it was breadboards & modules) but later used the 2004? OCW version (java iirc simulation) as a reference, then implemented that processor architecture in verilog and subsequently in an FPGA kit.