The visible computer: a fast track to understanding computing

The "visible computer" project at Duke University enables freshman level students to observe the essential mechanisms of computation in a few minutes and to understand them in a few weeks. The system has full motion color graphics to display the internal structures of an idealized machine. It enables students to type in Pascal code and watch every step as the code is parsed, translated to assembly language, loaded into memory, and executed. The course introduces students to programming, teaches the essential mechanisms of computer hardware and software, and teaches the frontiers and limitations of the field, time complexity, parallel computation, noncomputability, and artificial intelligence. The authors describe the four levels of the "visible computer" system and their usefulness in educational environments