You know the theme, but you have to

[Apuly]

I'm learning how operating systems work for college.
One of the "tools" that we use for this is minix, an operating system which has a kernal that is is only about 4 files big, and fits on about 400 pages of a book.
Of course we could learn everything from the linux kernal, but at this point of time this has become so big and complex that it's hard to understand what is going on for an inexperienced user.

My point in all of this is that we should not increase the complexity of the hardware that we need to learn purely for the sake of it being outdated. It works fine and is a great way of learning people the basics. What is a better solution (in my eyes) is to use these basic components, but also add more basics on top of them. For instance the need to have a fully functional data loop. Yes, still basic, but it does show that you grasp the more complex parts of computer architecture.

What I could also see improve the trial process, and feel free to disagree, is having a minimal required time to build. As in Crimulos example (which I'm not sure actually happened, but for all intensive purposes lets assure that it did) somebody passed in only 15 minutes, while there is an hour available for building. By adding a minimal required time, people who have finished in such a little time will be encouraged/forced to add more complexity to their build, thus improving the complexity of trial builds overall.
Also people who have only achieved an incredibly basic circuit, like just an RCA alu, can be judged based on the fact that it has taken them a lot of time to make these things, thus showing that they don't have enough knowledge to qualify for a plot.


All that or we realise that life is unfair and we move on.