Reddit reviews Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition: The Hardware Software Interface (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design)

Is it still this way? I think I saw that modern curriculums were switching to RISC-V for educational purposes.

EDIT: using, e.g., this: https://www.amazon.de/Computer-Organization-Design-RISC-V-Architecture/dp/0128122757

I read this book which explains everything you mentioned:

Computer Organization and Design RISC-V Edition: The Hardware Software Interface (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design)

There are MIPS and ARM editions, as well - I assume the same in most of the content.

Do you understand a current ISA? This will become clearer once you do.

MIPS or RISC-V are the recommended ones to start with.

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0124077269/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_kfG4Db0D3JR91

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0128122757/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_hfG4DbCTTF7H3

Also, it is going to be much faster to implement a processor in an HDL than in Minecraft.

. . . maybe? Even the amd64 spec has only half as many registers as RISC-V. It wouldn't be trivial.

EDIT: Check out this book, or an earlier edition for a good intro to why registers are important, and what makes ISAs efficient.

Organization and Design, RISC-V Edition - Patterson & Hennessy

The authors of this book recently won a Turing Award.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0128122757

Can't recommend this enough.

The natural next level is: this book! which is a fairly standard introduction to computer architecture at an undergraduate level

Welcome!

You need two books:

https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-RISC-V-Architecture/dp/0128122757

Get the original MIPS or later ARM version if you prefer -- they're absolutely fine, and the principles you learn one one apply to everything -- but the RISC-V one is the newest and is the only only one that you're actually legally allowed to make an implementation of at home and distribute, put on github etc.

But of course designing and making your own 16 bit ISA is huge fun, so I definitely recommend that too!

Once you've digested all that, their other book is more advanced. But the first one will get you a long way. This next one is the absolute bible of real computer architects and hardware designers.

https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Architecture-Quantitative-Approach-Kaufmann/dp/0128119055

That's by these guys, who originally invented the RISC-I and MIPS processors in the early 80s, invented the term "RISC" (and also RAID, btw). They recently received the Turing award for their lifetime efforts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LVeEjsn8Ts

Join comp.arch on usenet / google groups. There are lots of actual working or retired computer architects there, and they're helpful to energetic students and amateurs designing their own toy stuff.