I had avery similar course to this in college. We build a 4-bit machine (with a very limited instruction set) from scratch (well from basic logic gates and RAM

I had avery similar course to this in college. We build a 4-bit machine (with a very limited instruction set) from scratch (well from basic logic gates and RAM). For the final project grade the professor ran a test program through it and saw if the output matched what was expected. We actually physically built it on a breadboard. It was fun and I learned a lot. Hopefully this is a similar experience for those who take it.