This looks pretty intense. Their time estimates add up to over 35 days (assuming a full 8 hours of work per day) to complete, although some of the estimates seem a bit weird. Basic Linux installation and usage is given 10 hours which seems like it must be very hand holdy.
Also, there are some rough corners. I went to the course material to see what is covered in that 10 hour course and it starts off with:
*Install a Linux operating system*
We will reuse the content from the PA lecture notes.
Please install the Linux operating system according to PA0.
The Eve of the World's Birth: Development Environment Setup
The Story of the World's Birth - Prologue
PA tells the story of a “Pioneer Creating a Computer.”
The Pioneer intended to create a computer world.
But even the most skilled cook cannot make a meal without ingredients.
To facilitate the creation of this world, even the Pioneer had to put in considerable effort to prepare.
Let's see what tools he gathered.
Submission Requirements (Please read the following carefully. Violations will be at your own risk)
Estimated Average Time: 10 hours
This is Chinese text, so properly they are Hanzi. Yes, they use the same Unicode code points, and both words approximately mean "characters of the Han people" in their respective languages (and can be written with the same characters in those languages); but this is culturally sensitive and some people will give you a lot of grief about it. (The same character may be rendered differently, even within the same font, to respect different calligraphic traditions etc. This happens either with the help of supplementary "variation selector" characters or with font substitution based on some external detection of the language.) There are quite a few characters used in one language but not the other (despite being recognized as in some sense the same "kind of" character), and independent systems and traditions of simplification.
NAND2TETRIS is fun. For an experienced programmer the difficulty is almost akin to a game. Highly recommend it to programmers who have been in high level land for too long.
Just to add to this, the Branch Education YouTube channel has great videos detailing the manufacturing process as well, here's one for starters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX9CGRZwD-w
The organizers presented this at COSCUP 25 [1]. It's both extremely ambitious and impressive. They said there are basically no restrictions on who can join -- high schoolers to postdocs, and it's completely based on personal aptitude. The fastest students can finish in a few months, and some go on for years. Students who graduate finish an actual chip that (probably among other things) runs a video game.
Interesting initiative, too bad there is no english alternative with the same format (the linux parts are not that useful) since knowing mandarin is not that common.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 29.9 ms ] threadAlso, there are some rough corners. I went to the course material to see what is covered in that 10 hour course and it starts off with:
That PA0 link goes to https://ysyx.oscc.cc/docs/ics-pa/PA0.html which is entirely in Kanji but doesn't appear to have any extra information about installing Linux.The machine translation of that page is amusing:
This is Chinese text, so properly they are Hanzi. Yes, they use the same Unicode code points, and both words approximately mean "characters of the Han people" in their respective languages (and can be written with the same characters in those languages); but this is culturally sensitive and some people will give you a lot of grief about it. (The same character may be rendered differently, even within the same font, to respect different calligraphic traditions etc. This happens either with the help of supplementary "variation selector" characters or with font substitution based on some external detection of the language.) There are quite a few characters used in one language but not the other (despite being recognized as in some sense the same "kind of" character), and independent systems and traditions of simplification.
[1] https://coscup.org/2025/sessions/SNHFTW