While the concept of a computer system implemented in discrete logic ICs is by itself not among the most original ideas, the way some machines are executed certainly makes them stick out. This is the case with [Paulo Constantino]’s Sol-1, which not only looks extremely professional, but also comes with a lot of amenities that allow for system development, including a C compiler and assembler, a Unix-like OS (in development), DMA, and a whole host of interfaces to interact with the system and peripherals (serial, parallel, IDE, etc.). Not to mention a SystemVerilog model and an emulator, all of which can be found on [Paulo]’s GitHub.
More photos and videos can be found on [Paulo]’s YouTube channel, as well as the Sol-1 website, which shows off the intricate wire wrap work on the back of each PCB. In terms of the ISA, there are 5 general purpose registers (one scratch) which can also be used as two 8-bit registers each. Most operations are supported, except for floating point. For future improvements and additions, Sol-1’s OS will get more features added, and the first major software to be ported to the Sol-1 should be Colossal Cave Adventure and similar text-based adventure (dungeon) games.
Seeeeeet!
Neat, but can it run Doom? :^)
My crystal ball says in 2024 Pollux will post his Doom port to the SOL-1.
Disclaimer: My crystal ball is not all that reliable, but sometimes its predictions are correct.
[Re-posted, original reply and my first attempt to re-post somehow got posted to Orzel’s post down below. Re-loaded the page in a new web browser window for this, the 3rd try]
In awe…
I was only last week designing an adapter which allows me to use a cheap mechanical pencil as a wire wrap tool with the end goal of wire wrapping a 68000 bare bones system, but Paulo’s project just leaves me in awe, just marevllous.
Any project is great, even if it is just for the sake of doing the project.
That said, I am curious why you’d wire-wrap in 2023 when PCBs are as cheap as perfboard and PCB layout is so quick and painless. Also curious why you’d adapt a mechanical pencil into a wire-wrap tool instead of buying a cheap metal one that’ll last forever.
Well, I have to confess that it wasn’t for wire wrap as such, that’s me misusing the terminology, badly.
It’s more like the RoadRunner wiring system which is point to point wiring with soldered connections rather than wrapped and I thought it could be fun to build my own tools.
As for ‘why’ point to point (or indeed wirewrap if I ever find a source of sockets that don’t have a price tag that makes me cry)?
I have designed and sent out plenty of PCBs and have been *really* impressed with the quality and value from the factory but I wanted to do something a bit ad-hoc and immediate where I could make mistakes, fix them, think on the fly, modify etc and actually craft something rather than have it all pretty, neat and CAD, something I can say “I did that” instead of a professional PCB factory.
This computer is incredible. Even if the documentation is very brief, it’s something like a redo, via TTL logic, of a x86-inspired CPU and computer. Really INCREDIBLE.
None of the links to http://www.sol-1.org work. The name exists and resolves, but there’s nothing there listening for web requests. Unfortunately the “telnet to live demo” doesn’t work either :-(
Try again in some days. A massive surge of visits can kneel down any website that is not using some kind of CDN layer.
They work for me. Maybe the site was slashdotted, er, I mean hackadayed.
My crystal ball says in 2024 Pollux will post his Doom port to the SOL-1.
Disclaimer: My crystal ball is not all that reliable, but sometimes its predictions are correct.
My crystal ball says in 2024 Pollux will post his Doom port to the SOL-1.
Disclaimer: My crystal ball is not all that reliable, but sometimes its predictions are correct.
[re-posted, original reply somehow got posted to Orzel’s post down below]
I usually refrain from leaving comments that don’t add anything but in this case, I’ll do it because holy cow! This is impressive from design to execution. Just keeping track of all the wires is a feat. Congratulations.
Thank you so much for the kind article. The wesite is under development so some links are not working.
The telnet server is online, however since the operating system of the computer is quite fragile at the moment, it can easly crash with the unexpected command. If I am at home I can reboot it, but if I’m not it will stay in a crash loop until I can reboot.
Thanks again!
Congratulations Paulo! Sol-1 is a fantastic work and was very inspiring to me at the time. I learned a lot through this. Keep improving always!