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The popularization of FPGAs for the hobbyist market means a lot more than custom LED controllers and clones of classic computer systems. FPGAs are also a great tool to experiment with computer architecture, creating new, weird, CPUs that don't abide by the conventions the industry has used for 40 years. [Victor] is designing a new CPU that challenges the conventions of how to access different … [Read more...]
[Quinn Dunki] pulled together many months worth of work by interfacing her GPU with the CPU. This is one of the major points in her Veronica project which aims to build a computer from the ground up. We've seen quite a number of posts from her regarding the AVR-powered GPU. So far the development of that component has been happening separately from the 6502 centered CPU. But putting them … [Read more...]
We'd bet everyone reading this article has played a game on an emulator at some time or another. And you may have a base idea of how those emulators work. But we'd wager the vast majority of you are clueless about the actual implementation of game emulators (we know we are). But that has all changed after seeing this demonstration of how [Bisqwit] wrote his own NES emulator. The description … [Read more...]
A lot of Linux users include system monitor information in their status panel so that they can see when the CPU is grinding away. [Kevin] is taking the concept one step further by changing his case lights based on CPU usage. Above you can see green, orange, and magenta, but [Kevin's] implementation uses the full spectrum of color. The project is based on an ATmega48. It's running the V-USB … [Read more...]
[Kyle] has been hard at working building an 8-bit computer from the ground up. He's using a set of logic IC's for the various components, and some NVRAM chips to store the control words. What you see above is the roadmap for his instruction set. He's just started writing them to the chips, making the job easier by building an Arduino-based programmer. We've enjoyed watching [Quinn Dunki's] … [Read more...]
You're going to want to do some stretching before undertaking a soldering project like this one. We're betting that the physical toll of assembling this 4-bit discrete processor project is starting to drive [SV3ORA] just a bit crazy. This small piece of electronic real estate is playing host to 62 transistors so far, and he's not done yet. It's one thing to build some logic gates in Minecraft … [Read more...]
[Lior Elazary] designed and built this clock to simulate the function of a CPU. The problem is that if you don't already have a good grasp of how a CPU works we think this clock will be hopelessly confusing. But lucky for us, we get it, and we love it! Hour data is shown as a binary number on Register A. This is the center column of red parts and is organized with the MSB on the bottom, the LSB … [Read more...]
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