OTOH, are you really going to be implementing memory segmenting in your gate-level CPU? I'd say actually creating a working CPU and _then_ emulating a real CPU (warts and all) are both necessary steps to real understanding.
This. I mean, why not start with wave theory and material science if you really want a good understanding :)
In my CS course I learned a hell of a lot from creating a 6800 emulator; though it wasn't on the course, building a working 6800 system was. The development involved running an assembler on a commercial *nix system and then typing the hex object code into an EPROM programmer. You get a lot of time to think about where your bugs are when you have to wait for a UV erase cycle...
