The CDL is my take on how to first understand
technology. Children understand your cupboards
by emptying them. Archaeologists understand civilizations
by exhuming them. Biologists understand living
organisms by dissecting them. Geologists,
textual critics, doctors, hackers, atomic physicists,
and thesis advisors all have this in common: that
us humans understand something by first tearing it apart.
So, to understand computers, what must one do? I
submit that one must completely dismantle several
complicated devices in the computational category
before one can truly understand computers. The
first time I did this, I pulled the EPROM from an
antiquated Apple IIe. I moved from dissecting
deprecated machinery to merely inoperational
but otherwise modern PC's. When I taught programming
at a local high school, and math at another local
high school, I made sure
I tore apart, in broad roomlight in full view
of the participating students, a computer.
Special thanks to
Stone
Computer, of Toledo OH,
which donated a full (and I might add, working)
computer to this educational endeavor.
I could here include a dissertation on the workings
of the common, household PC complete with overhead
projector transparancies and worksheets, but I
prefer to simply take the easy way out and place
scanned and digital pictures of CDL components!
If you wish to donate hardware to the cause, or perform your own
CDL-endorsed disassembly, please contact me.
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