What information entered the process?
Labs / Computer Science
Logic Gates
Click the A and B switches to flip their bits from 0 to 1, then pick a gate and watch the output lamp respond. Lit wires carry a 1, dark wires carry a 0, and the highlighted row of the truth table always shows exactly why the answer came out the way it did.
Labs / Computer Science / Logic Gates
Logic Gates
Click the A and B switches to flip their bits from 0 to 1, then pick a gate and watch the output lamp respond. Lit wires carry a 1, dark wires carry a 0, and the highlighted row of the truth table always shows exactly why the answer came out the way it did.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Computer science turns clear rules into reliable processes. This model lets you step through those rules and see how each decision changes the result.
Explore
Try the model
A 1B 0Y 1
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Which gate lights its lamp only when both inputs are 1, and which one lights up as soon as either input is 1?
- The NAND gate is just AND with the output flipped. Can you predict its truth table before you look at it?
- XOR means "different". What pattern of inputs turns its lamp off, and does that match the highlighted row?
- Open the "XOR = NANDs" preset. How can four copies of the same NAND gate behave exactly like one XOR?
- If NAND alone can be wired into XOR, do you think every other gate could be built from NANDs too?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Trace the process one step at a time. Name the rule used at each important step, then explain why the final result follows from those rules.
Check
Before you leave
Which rule changed it?
Why did the process produce this result?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.