Hardware Theory

Overview

Hardware Theory is a free educational website about computer hardware, aimed at software developers, students and other readers who want to understand the machine beneath their code. It publishes 139 short articles grouped into five topic areas: computer architecture, computer organisation, chipset design and modularity, advanced CPU/GPU architectures, and computing history. Curated reading paths assemble the articles into ordered routes, such as how a CPU core executes code, why memory is the bottleneck, and how GPUs execute and move data.

Alongside the articles, the site provides six browser-based lab tools: an IEEE 754 float inspector, a binary and two's complement calculator, a configurable cache simulator, an Amdahl's law speedup calculator, a memory/PCIe bandwidth and Little's law calculator, and a die-yield and chiplet cost calculator. Each tool explains its assumptions and is presented as a simplified model rather than a benchmark. The site also hosts narrated videos with captions, chapters and transcripts, and a 176-term glossary that links definitions to related explanations.

No account is required to read the articles or use the lab tools. Optional paid material by the author includes a HARDWARE THEORY ebook and a Hardware Buying & System Design Toolkit, both distributed through Gumroad.