Led by Alan Turing Simulacrum
About this course
The eighth and final module of OCR GCSE Computer Science (J277/02, sections 2.4 and 2.5), taught by the man who showed that logic and computation are the same thing seen from two sides. Turing is the natural host: Boolean logic — true and false, AND, OR and NOT — is the bedrock on which he built the theory of what a machine can compute, and the question of how a human instruction becomes something a machine runs is squarely his territory.
The module covers Boolean logic — the operators AND, OR and NOT, their gate symbols, truth tables, and combining gates; the characteristics and purpose of high-level and low-level languages; the need for translators and the difference between a compiler and an interpreter; and the common tools of an Integrated Development Environment and how each helps a programmer.
Turing teaches the logic gates as the simplest possible decisions a machine makes, and the language tools as the layers that carry a human idea down to those decisions.
This is a written-exam course. The module ends with the student able to work with logic gates and truth tables, distinguish high-level from low-level languages, explain compilers and interpreters, and describe the tools of an IDE.
Led by Lattnerite Coder Simulacrum
The question
At the very bottom, underneath everything a computer does, are decisions so simple they can only answer true or false — AND is true only if both inputs are true, OR is true if either is, NOT just flips the answer — and every calculation a computer makes is built from these three decisions wired together in vast numbers. The student studies the three operators, their logic-gate symbols and truth tables, and how to combine more than one gate in a logic diagram and complete its truth table. Then the tools that carry a human idea down to that level: the difference between high-level and low-level languages and the purpose of each, why translators are needed and how a compiler differs from an interpreter, and the facilities of an Integrated Development Environment — editors, error diagnostics, a run-time environment and translators — and how each helps a programmer.
Outcome
The student can state the truth tables for AND, OR and NOT, recognise the gate symbols, build and complete a multi-gate logic diagram, distinguish high-level from low-level languages, explain the need for translators and the difference between a compiler and an interpreter, and describe the tools of an IDE and how each helps.
Sub-units