If you don't have a strong electronics background, the XGameStation [1] with it's accompanying textbook The Black Art of Game Console Design [2] involves soldering up a primitive game console with a bunch of example game source code to go with it. The book starts with basic electronics theory and gets into some pretty bare-metal discussions regarding stuff like NTSC and VGA video output programming.
[1] http://www.ic0nstrux.com/products/gaming-systems/xgamestatio...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Black-Video-Game-Console-Design/dp/06...