Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
My Ph.D. advisor was passionate about paper tape readers for computers. "You can actually see the bits." Required students in the senior-level computer hardware design class to build an interface circuit for a paper tape reader and a PDP-11.

But I digress.

I digress, too, but that's a great exercise. "Seeing the bits" is about learning the fundamentals of digital design, like what is really happening when you do A vs B or code C vs D at the bits and bytes level. I won't digress further on this though... :)
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.