I highly recommend the book, and the course, http://www.nand2tetris.org/ http://www.nand2tetris.org/ (previously known as The Elements of Computing Systems or T

I highly recommend the book, and the course, http://www.nand2tetris.org/ http://www.nand2tetris.org/ (previously known as The Elements of Computing Systems or TECS). This starts with discussion on NAND gates and goes through building CPU components, to a complete computer, to implementing a high-level language for it. (All the chapters from the book revevant to your question are available as free PDFs).