This book has been developed as a companion text to the University of the People course CS1104 Computer Systems. The University of the People is an accredited online university that offers programs in business administration and computer science. The university is unique in that it has no tuition, is tuition free, non-profit, and serves students from around the world.

The computer systems course takes the student on a fascinating journey that begins by learning the properties of conductors and semiconductors, through an understanding of how these properties are used to create transistors as switches. It continues with the concepts of logic gates, which are assembled into circuits, and eventually ends with the student developing their own computer system and writing assembly language programs for the computer system they design.