Die shots of as many CPUs and other interesting chips as possible

How can someone explain this to a kid? Is there somewhere an even more simplified version than Arduino or similar to show how all these things actually work? I know arduino is not a cpu, but overall, how these things work together, would be great to see/show.

I don't expect to show how electrons move :) I mean, some model, a toy or so, that shows how these things work. I remember it only from books/specs, but even there, at a certain point there are "limits" :)

I‘m teaching a course on computer architecture at my university and there are these model processors called MUx (MU0-7) that explain how a CPU works from the ground up. I‘m not aware of any toys (my students keep asking me about that as well), but I wrote an interactive visualizer that illustrates the simplest processor and how data moves through it: https://pascalbormann.de/mu-vis/ Not mobile friendly unfortunately and maybe a bit too advanced for kids, but it could be a starting point. The code is here if you want to build on it: https://github.com/Mortano/mu0-visualization

There is a famous video from Hitachi[^1] showing the Youngs double slit experiment[^2]. You may like it!

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PanqoHa_B6c

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment

A breadboard CPU would be a good "toy" no?

You can see a simulation of an 6502 CPU running here.

http://www.visual6502.org/JSSim/expert.html

Also this person has some simple tutorial on how a toy CPUs work. He even made a simulator so you can make your own using gate logic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZwneRb-zqA&list=PLFt_AvWsXl...

Some of the later steps may be beyond them, depending on the child's age, but Charles Petzold's wonderful book Code explains how you could set up a processor from logic gates with only a little handwaving.

If they are a little older and interested, NAND 2 Tetris is a good self-paced course.

True but to do anything interesting you do need a whole bunch of wires and components, even for an 8-bit CPU. Maybe it is a good start to instead combine gates to do some useful work. People are also building CPUs in Minecraft, that should get kids engaged :)

That's how I was taught, build up a CPU using TTL logic chips.

Even just starting with the building blocks is useful, like build a flip-flop

How old is the kid?

When my kids were less than 10 I took them to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View CA and showed them how all the mechanical computers work. They have some exploded and simplified exhibits that are very visual so kids can get it pretty easy. Especially if they’re the kind of kid that builds with blocks. Games like Turing Tumble are good too. Then you just wave your hands and say chips work like this on the inside, but with electricity instead of gears because it’s faster, smaller, cheaper and uses less energy. But at the end of the day, it’s basically all clockwork. Then they smile and say, “makes sense”. And I leave it at that.

When the kids were teenagers I gave them a more thorough explanation.

If you’re not in the Bay Area then the Computer Museum does have YouTube videos. There are many others as well.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XSkGY6LchJs&pp=ygUbbWVjaGFuaWN...