The Benedict Year › The workshop
The last weeks · Weeks 34–36
The machine runs
Nothing new is built. The program you wrote in Project 4 runs on the computer you built in Project 5, and the family comes to watch.
The kind of answer
Witnessed. A thing shown, not proved. The machine does what it is for, and none of its parts knows it. What it is for is in the one who made it and in the ones it serves.
On paper first
Read again the page from Project 0, where everyone at the table said what is inside a computer. Write next to each answer what you now know.
Where
In the Hardware Simulator.
Week by week
About an afternoon a week. If a week runs long, let it: the strand keeps its own order, not the calendar’s.
| Week | Watch | Do |
|---|---|---|
| Week 34 | — | Translate your own program from week 24 by hand into ones and zeros, as in Project 6. |
| Week 35 | — | Load it into the computer you built and run it. The course’s Computer tests load a program before they run; load yours the same way. |
| Week 36 | — | Show it to the family. Then watch lecture 0.3 again, From Hack to Tetris: the climb that a second year would take. |
For the parent
Nothing here is graded. The child explains the computer to someone, from the gate to the screen. Let them run the show.
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