Show HN: 4917 Machine Code for Kids – Card Game

This is a card game for teaching kids how to read and write machine code, using a simple 4 bit computer with very simple instruction set, 2 general purpose registers and only 16 cells of addressable memory.

[HOW TO PLAY]

[START THE DEBUGGER]

The cards have 54 small programs, illustrating various low level concepts such as:

1. fetch execute cycle
2. instruction arguments
3. variables
4. pointers
5. self modifying programs
6. self corrupting programs
7. self referencing code
8. integer overflows and underflows
9. control flow and addressable memory
10. code is data
11. data ia code
12. debugging

• print on a4: list of all 55 cards, shrinked to width=25% so that they printable on 7 sheets of a4 paper (landscape, no margins)
• code: 4917
• author: github.com/jackdoe
• co author: Jackie (11 yo)
• contact: b0000@fastmail.com
• price: this game costs 15€ instead of 10€ because I printed only 100 decks instead of 300 like programming-time, as I thought less people would be interested in machine code than python. The shipping cost of 10€ high for Europe but low for US/Asia so it kind of evens out over all. 50 cents for envelope, 2€ for bus ticket and actual shipping cost for USA is actually 13.50€, but for The Netherlands its only 7€. I printed 100 decks and plan to sell no more than 50, the rest I will dontate to schools.
• license: CC BY 4.0

The game is based on Richard Buckland’s 4 bit computer

Note: When you play with your kid, install x64dbg and show them the actual machine code of a program as it is being executed. Another thing that is really helpful is if you write a small C program that does somewhat the same thing as a specific card to illustrate it better.

Also check out the other game we made: programming time teach your kids python, try to play few cards from each game at lunch or dinner.

Example cards (6 out of 55):