I think it's going to be more useful once they get pass the first two courses when they go for more advanced courses. I'd argue 6502 or 8086 is still more usefu

I think it's going to be more useful once they get pass the first two courses when they go for more advanced courses. I'd argue 6502 or 8086 is still more useful than LC-3 which is frequently used in CompArch classes. The thing about advanced courses are: all production material more or less went through 30-40 years of evolution so it's impossible to get students to jump into it directly. Few people can hack modern gcc or Linux kernals nowadays. We can only go back some 30 years and work on the machines then to get some ideas. Yeah it takes a lot of time though, plus it's just a concept, not real courses -- I myself is a very mediocre programmer.