What happens when a CPU starts
Amongst the first sentences...<p>> It may be thought of as what happens when a whole computer starts, since the CPU is the center of the computer and the place where the action begins.<p>I thought that too. Last year I spent a while getting as low-level as I could and trying to understand how to write a boot loader, a kernel, learn about clocks and pins and interrupts, etc. I thought, "I know, I'll get a Raspberry Pi! That way even if I brick it I didn't waste too much money".<p>Turns out the Raspberry Pi (and I'm guessing many other systems) are pretty confusing to understand at boot time. For one, it's the GPU that actually does the initial boot process, and much of that is hard to find good info on.  (<a href="https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/14862/why-does-the-raspberry-pis-gpu-control-the-first-stages-of-the-boot-process" rel="nofollow">https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/14862/why-do...</a>)<p>I spent many many hours reading various specs & docs and watching tons of low-level YouTube videos. Compared to software development higher up the stack (my usual area), I found the material surprisingly sparse and poor for the most part. (Maybe that's reflective of the size of the audience and the value in producing it).