Pluralistic: "Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works" (05 Nov 2025)


Today's links


The First Second cover for 'Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works.'

"Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works" (permalink)

In Science Comics Computers: How Digital Hardware Works, legendary cypherpunk Perry Metzger teams up with Penelope Spector and illustrator Jerel Dye for a tour-de-force young adult comic book that uses hilarious steampunk dinosaurs to demystify the most foundational building-blocks of computers. It's astounding:

https://www.veniac.com/

"Science Comics" is a long-running series from First Second, the imprint that also published my middle-grades comic In Real Life and my picture book Poesy the Monster-Slayer (they are also publishing my forthcoming middle-grades graphic novel Unauthorized Bread and adult graphic novel Enshittification). But long before I was a First Second author, I was a giant First Second fan, totally captivated by their string of brilliant original comics and English translations of beloved comics from France, Spain and elsewhere. The "Science Comics" series really embodies everything I love about the imprint: the combination of whimsy, gorgeous art, and a respectful attitude towards young readers that meets them at their level without ever talking down to them:

https://us.macmillan.com/series/sciencecomics

But as great as the whole "Science Comics" series is, How Digital Hardware Works is even better. Our guide to the most profound principles in computer science is a T Rex named Professor Isabella Brunel, who dresses in steampunk finery that matches the Victorian, dinosaur-filled milieu in which she operates.

Brunel begins by introducing us to "Veniac," a digital computer that consists of a specially designed room in which a person performs all the steps involved in the operations of a computer. This person – a celebrated mathematician (she has a Fields Medal) velociraptor named Edna – moves slips of paper in and out of drawers, looks up their meaning in a decoder book, tacks them up on a corkboard register, painstakingly completing the operations that comprise the foundations of computing.

Here the authors are showing the reader that computing can be abstracted from computing. The foundation of computing isn't electrical engineering, microlithography, or programming: it's logic.

When I was six or seven, my father brought home a computer science teaching tool from Bell Labs called "CARDiac," the "CARDboard Illustrative Aid to Computation." This was a papercraft digital computer that worked in nearly the same way as the Veniac, with you playing the role of Edna, moving little tokens around, penciling and erasing values in registers, and painstakingly performing the operations to run values through adders and then move them to outputs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARDboard_Illustrative_Aid_to_Computation

CARDiac was profoundly formative for me. No matter how infinitesimal and rapid the components of a modern computer are, I have never lost sight of the fact that they are performing the same operations I performed with a CARDiac on my child-sized desk in my bedroom. This is exactly the mission of CARDiac, whose creators, David Hagelbarger and Saul Fingerman, were worried that the miniaturization of computers (in 1968!) was leading to a time where it would be impossible to truly grasp how they worked. If you want to build your own CARDiac, here's a PDF you can download and get started with:

https://www.instructables.com/CARDIAC-CARDboard-Illustrative-Aid-to-Computation-/

But of course, you don't need to print, assemble and operate a CARDIac to get the fingertip feeling of what's going on inside a computer. Watching a sassy velociraptor perform the operations will work just as well. After Edna lays down this conceptual framework, Brunel moves on to building a mechanical digital computer, one composed of mechanical switches that can be built up into logic gates, which can, in turn, be ganged together to create every part of a universal computer that can compute every valid program.

This mechanical computer – the "Brawniac" – runs on compressed air, provided by a system of pumps that either supply positive pressure (forcing corks upwards to either permit or block airflow) or negative pressure (which sucks the corks back down, toggling the switch's state). This simple switch – you could probably build one in your kitchen out of fish-tank tubing and an aquarium pump – is then methodically developed into every type of logic gate. These gates are then combined to replicate every function of Edna in her special Veniac room, firmly anchoring the mechanical nuts-and-bolts of automatic computing with the conceptual framework.

This goes beyond demystification: the authors here are attaching a handle to this big, nebulous, ubiquitous hyperobject that permeates every part of our lives and days, allowing the reader to grasp and examine it from all angles. While there's plenty of great slapstick, fun art, and terrific characters in this book that will make you laugh aloud, the lasting effect upon turning the last page isn't just entertainment, it's empowerment.

No wonder they were able to tap the legendary hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang to contribute an outstanding introduction to this book, one that echoes the cri de coeur in in the intro that bunnie generously provided for my young adult novel Little Brother. No one writes about the magic of hacking hardware like bunnie:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/12/30/the-hardware-hacker-bunnie-huangs-tour-de-force-on-hardware-hacking-reverse-engineering-china-manufacturing-innovation-and-biohacking/

Bunnie isn't the only computing legend associated with this book. Lead author Perry Metzger founded the Cryptography mailing list and is a computing pioneer in his own right.

The authors have put up a website at veniac.com that promises educator guides and a Veniac simulator. These will doubtless serve as excellent companions to the book itself, but even without them, this is an incredible accomplishment.

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

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A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

  • "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE AND SUBMITTED.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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