Little Man Computer Explained: Introduction to LMC

This video uses Little Man Computer as a way to explain how a computer works and how your program code (machine instructions) "tell" the hardware what to do. Little Man Computer is a thought experiment developed at MIT by Dr. Stuart Madnick that helps us understand the process that unfolds within the computer CPU or Central Processing Unit.
It is similar in ways to the “Chinese room” thought experiment presented by philosopher John Searle in which he holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot be shown to have a consciousness or mind.
This video starts explores the concept of an ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) and how the hardware and instruction set of a computer architecture are built together. The Little Man Instruction set comprises of only 10 instructions but gives us all the tools we need to implement high level programming constructs like conditionals, looping, functional calls and recursion. We also identify the basic components within the LMC hardware and give a brief description of each parts function.
This video is the first of a series on Little Man Computer. The videos that follow this one create programs for Hello World, Conditionals, Looping, function calls and more. Exploring how high level programs are actually implemented as machine code.
Hello LMC video (next video): • Little Man Computer (L...
Please like this video and subscribe and would like to see more like it! / @codingcoach
The next video in this series expands on this one by following a subtraction problem that returns an absolute value (positive difference of 2 numbers). We see how high level code transitions through compilation and assembly and how branching is used in the CPU, you can that video here: • Little Man Computer (L...
This video is part of my Fundamentals of Computer Science series which you can find here: • Computer Science Funda...
It is also part of my Computer Organization and Architecture course which you can find here: • Computer Organization ...
Another set of videos that may be helpful is my series on Binary, Hexadecimal and Octal numbers which you can find here:
- Number Systems (how to convert): • Number Systems: How to...
- Binary Arithmetic: • Binary Math: How to do...
- Hexadecimal and Octal Arithmetic: • Hexadecimal and Octal ...
- Hexadecimal, Octal and Binary cheatsheet (quick conversion guide): • Hexadecimal Octal and ...
Here are presentation slides that can be used as a supplement to follow along and as a future reference for this content: drive.google.com/file/d/1xW4M...

[@boss4078]

I appreciate the effort put into the videos. It is some very good stuff.

[@CodingCoach]

I appreciate that!

[@alppaccino]

thanks for this

[@CodingCoach]

You're welcome

[@dillionamartey6674]

Can you help me with a lmc code to output the maximum number of 5 input

[@erim1434]

thank you!

[@CodingCoach]

You're welcome!

[@shadowdraiden3277]

W video gang

[@davegraham7550]

It would be great if you could make a video explaining Unicode and how language shapes are stored and displayed in general. I am still trying to understand it and Unicode itself is only one of any number of potential ways of achieving the same effect.

[@CodingCoach]

check this one out: ua-cam.com/video/YuUep2Lb6sU/v-deo.html

[@davegraham7550]

@@CodingCoach ok thanks. Have just read some things tonight and now have it figured that Unicode is different to UTF-8, UTF-8 of representing Unicode. I have a project that can may be solved using the private use area. A customised letter set that has the same challenges that there are in representing a "conlang" .

[@davegraham7550]

Yes watched the video thanks. The difference between Unicode and UTF-8, 16 etc.. is an easily confused point. See some challenges for language representation here. Changing the writing system of a language can have huge benefits in the cognition of a language and is very popular in Western Africa...ua-cam.com/video/xa8BYZrSTxY/v-deo.html.