Homemade Computer From 1970s Chips

June 16, 2017 by Bryan Cockfield 39 Comments

Sometimes it starts with a 555 timer and an op-amp. Other times with a small microcontroller. But the timing’s not so great and needs a dedicated timing crystal circuit. And maybe some more memory, and maybe the ATtiny should be swapped out for some 74LS-series chips. And now of course it needs video output too. Before you know it, you’re staring at a 40-chip computer that hearkens back to a simpler, yet somehow more complex, time of computing. At least that’s where [Marcel] is with his breadboard computer based on 1970s-era chips.

For what it does, this homebrew computer is relatively simple and straightforward. It gets 8 bits of processing power from 34 TTL chips. Another 6 round out the other features needed for the computer to operate. It is capable of rendering 64 colors in software and has more than enough memory for a computer of this sort. So far the only recurring problem [Marcel] has had has been with breadboard fatigue, as some of the chips keep popping out of the sockets.

This is a great project for anyone interested in homebrew or 8-bit computing, partially because of some of the self-imposed limitations that [Marcel] imposed on himself, like “only chips from the 70s”. It’s an impressive build on its own and looks to get much better since future plans call for a dedicated PCB to solve the issue with the worn-out breadboards. If you’re already invested in a project like this, don’t forget that the rabbit hole can go a little deeper: you can build a computer out of discrete transistors as well.

Another 74XX Series CPU

March 28, 2017 by Adil Malik 13 Comments

[Jack Eisenmann] is no stranger to building impressive DIY CPU’s on vast stretches of breadboard. This time [Jack] has done away with the seventeen breadboards he used in his last 8-bit computer and instead has gone a step further and designed a set of generously utilised PCB’s for the CPU. The result is the DUO Enterprise.

The CPU design is based around an 8-bit data bus and a 24-bit address bus. As usual, a minimal yet carefully chosen instruction set allows [Jack] to do all the heavy lifting in software as part of the compiler and operating system he is working on. There is no sign of a display yet, instead the computer communicates via a dumb terminal. We love the aluminum foil for shielding! Check out the video, below, to see what we mean.

Over the years, we have seen many of [Jack]’s other CPU builds featured on Hackaday. One of his first designs was a 4-bit CPU that could play many games on a LED matrix.Later he did a much more impressive 8-bit CPU along with analog video output and an OS ofcourse. It could even play pong. He even built a Single Instruction Set Computer (SISC).

His final goal with DUO Enterprise is to allow anyone to utilise its computing power by submitting programs and calculations. Heads up [Jack], our neural net needs training soon.

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Pancake-ROM: Eat-only Memory?

February 21, 2017 by Elliot Williams 10 Comments

You can store arbitrary data encoded in binary as a pattern of zeros and ones. What you do to get those zeros and ones is up to you. If you’re in a particularly strange mood, you could even store them as strips of chocolate on Swedish pancakes.

Oddly enough, the possibility of the pancake as digital storage medium was what originally prompted [Michael Kohn] to undertake his similar 2013 project where he encoded his name on a paper wheel. Perhaps wisely, he prototyped on a simpler medium. With that perfected, four years later, it was time to step up to Modified Swedish Pancake Technology (MSPT).

Highlights of the build include trying to optimize the brightness difference between chocolate and pancake. Reducing the amount of sugar in the recipe helps increase contrast by reducing caramelization, naturally. And cotton balls placed under the spinning cardboard platform can help stabilize the spinning breakfast / storage product.

Even so, [Michael] reports that it took multiple tries to get the sixteen bytes (bites?) of success in the video below. The data is stenciled onto the pancake and to our eye is quite distinct. Improvement seems to be more of an issue with better edge detection for the reflectance sensor.

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Relay Computer Starts With An Adder That Makes A Racket

February 17, 2017 by Dan Maloney 49 Comments

Computers built using discrete logic chips? Seen it. Computers from individual transistors? Impressive, but it’s been done. A computer built out of electromechanical relays? Bring on the ozone!

The aptly named [Clickity Clack]’s new YouTube channel promises to be very interesting if he can actually pull off a working computer using nothing but relays. But even if he doesn’t get beyond the three videos in the playlist already, the channel is definitely worth checking out. We’ve never seen a simpler, clearer explanation of binary logic, and [Clickity Clack]’s relay version of the basic logic gates is a great introduction to the concepts.

Using custom PCBs hosting banks of DPDT relays, he progresses from the basic AND and XOR gates to half adders and full adders, explaining how carry in and carry out works. Everything is modular, so four of his 4-bit adder cards eventually get together to form a 16-bit adder, which we assume will be used to build out a very noisy yet entertaining ALU. We’re looking forward to that and relay implementations of the flip-flops and other elements he’ll need for a full computer.

And pay no mind to our earlier dismissal of non-traditional computer projects. It’s worth checking out this discrete 7400 logic computer and this all-transistor build. They’re impressive too in their own way, if a bit quieter than [Clickety Clack]’s project.

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Pick-And-Place Machine For Candy

December 29, 2016 by Bryan Cockfield No comments

Every December and May the senior design projects from engineering schools start to roll in. Since the students aren’t yet encumbered with real-world detractors (like management) the projects are often exceptional, unique, and solve problems we never even thought we had. Such is the case with [Mark] and [Peter]’s senior design project: a pick and place machine that promises to solve all of life’s problems.

Of course we’ve seen pick-and-place machines before, but this one is different. Rather than identifying resistors and capacitors to set on a PCB, this machine is able to identify and sort candies. The robot — a version of the MeARM — has three degrees of freedom and a computer vision system to alert the arm as to what it’s picking up and where it should place it. A Raspberry Pi handles the computer vision and feeds data to a PIC32 which interfaces with the hardware.

One of the requirements for the senior design class was to keep the budget under $100, which they were able to accomplish using pre-built solutions wherever possible. Robot arms with dependable precision can’t even come close to that price restraint. But this project overcomes the lack of precision in the MeArm by using incremental correcting steps to reach proper alignment. This is covered in the video demo below.

Senior design classes are a great way to teach students how to integrate all of their knowledge into a final class, and the professors often include limits they might find in the real world (like the budget limit in this project). The requirement to thoroughly document the build process is also a lesson that more people could stand to learn. Senior design classes have attempted to solve a lot of life’s other problems, too; from autonomous vehicles to bartenders, there’s been a solution for almost every problem.

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Script Your Way Out Of Video Editing Drudgery

November 26, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 12 Comments

[Victor Frost] has a deep voice and a fancy top of the line camera. While one would assume this to be a more than generous situation for life to put a person in; it’s got its own set of problems. Mainly that his fantastic fancy camera uses the most modern version of the popular h.264 encoding scheme, h.265. Gasp!

While that too seems like a pro, unfortunately h.265 doesn’t play as nice with his editing software. The solution seems easy, just transcode it and get on your way. However, when you start talking about transcoding 4K video from a top-of-the line source and retaining the quality. Well… It can bring a processor to its knees. Since he’d rather be playing overwatch than transcoding video on his main computer, he decided to offload and automate the drudgery to his spare.

That’s how the Ingest-a-Tron 9000 came into play. It uses a lot of open source software and, yes, windows batch files to take the files off his camera, process it on one computer, and dump it to another. Now he can game (or edit) while he waits. For those of us who are estranged from Linux thanks to our favorite software, it’s good to know that there are still ways to automate away the pain. Video after the break.

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Hook Any Mouse To An Acorn

October 22, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 16 Comments

Acorn was one of the great IT giants that rose high and then fell to obscurity during the rise of personal computing. However, for many hobbyists these computers are as important and as loved as the Commodore 64. [Simon Inns] has made a great adapter to interface modern USB mice to these old boxes.

After thirty years of interaction with people, one might be hard pressed to find a working mouse for an older computer. On top of that, even if you did, these mice are likely a lackluster experience to begin with. They were made long before industrial designers were invited to play with computers and are often frustrating and weird. Cotton swabs and alcohol are involved, to say the least.

[Simon]’s box converts a regular USB HID compliant mouse to a quadrature signal that these 8-bit computers like. The computer then counts the fake pulses and happily moves the cursor around. No stranger to useful conversion boxes, he used an Atmel micro (AT90USB1287) with a good set of USB peripherals. It’s all nicely packed into a project box. There’s a switch on the front to select between emulation modes.

If you’d like one for yourself the code and schematics are available on his site. As you can see in the video below, the device works well!

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