It helped me understand computers!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_man_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARDboard_Illustrative_Aid_to_...
"CARDIAC arrest (ba-dum tsss)"
Had to disable JS to get the frame URL and load that instead.
Dewdney collected his columns into a few books over the years. The Tinker Toy computer is featured in this one: https://archive.org/details/tinkertoycomputer00dewd
10,000 parts. "The gates are all TTL (Tinker Toy Logic)" :-)