Hand-made Web Server, Built From 200 TTL Chips

ps writes "Bill Buzbee has constructed a hand-made CPU, complete with hardware address translation, memory mapped I/O, and DMA, out of 200 74-series TTL chips wired together with thousands of individually wrapped wires. By using a port of Adam Dunkels' uIP TCP/IP stack to the Magic-1, it currently serves up live web pages at an amazing speed of 3 MHz. See the website for photos and schematics."

Comments

Serves up webpages...

[drunkennewfiemidget]

And as part of its stress-testing procedure, its been slashdotted!

Re:Serves up webpages...

[squiggleslash]

I just read something in the Wall Street Journal suggesting he was going to phase out the 200 TTL chips, and switch to Intel...

Re:Serves up webpages...

[pegr]

Sadly, I don't think that the /. effect is anywhere near what it was several years ago.

Fark takes down sites faster.


And posts the same stories a week earlier! :p

Garage innovation at its finest!

[seanadams.com]

This just goes to show the kind of amazing innovation that can still come out of a garage project. One guy working on his own can sometimes come up with ideas that the big guys like Intel etc are just too slow to be able to jump on. They're all fiddling around trying to get their buggy Verilog tools to work, while this guy just goes and wire wraps it in a few evenings. Bravo! I'll bet it takes the big semiconductor companies at least a year to catch up with this.

Not a smart move..

[Folmer]

He posted his 3 Mhz server on slashdot.. i guess that by now that fine wire-mess is a melted wire-mess...

Re:Not a smart move..

[lanced]

That just goes to show how advanced that computer really is. This guy included firewire.

3 MHz?

[Mz6]

Post a link to a 3 MHz webserver on Slashdot? BRILLIANT!

Checklist

[nizo]

- Lots of gigantor pictures: Check
- Already slow even before hitting the front page: Check
- Millions of bored geeks have just dragged themselves into work: Check

Yep, there is no chance this will get slashdotted, but in case it does, I think there is a mirror working here.

Re:Checklist

[caluml]

Millions of bored geeks have just dragged themselves into work: Check

Did anyone explain to you how this world is spherical....?

Re:Checklist

[Ford Prefect]

The mirror does seem to be at least partially working, but I have to admit I disagree with one of the designer's future intentions:

TTL rather than FPGA. My reasons here pretty much boil down to "because that's what I want to do." FPGAs do sound fun, but I really am drawn towards using technology that is similar to that which was current when I first became introduced to computers. Perhaps for Magic-2....

No! Magic-2 must be built out of discrete transistors, Magic-3 out of valves, and Magic-4 must be entirely mechanical. Successive technological anachronisms must increase in their level of insanity! :-)

I did a short course in digital microelectronics a few years ago (ever-so-coincidentally using 74xx chips as well) - it was great fun putting everything together, extending things, linking flip-flops and whatnot together. With parts 'borrowed' from others, I built a giant counter circuit, but who knows what I might have built given enough chips, breadboards and wires...

Quickest Slashdotting on Record ...

[xmas2003]

The 3MHz PC hung in there for about 3msec ...

P.S. Cool project Bill.

Tradgic

[Jo Owen]

Magic-1 Stats

* Files served: 804
* Boot time: Sunday, June 05 2005 - 08:59:01 PM
* Current time: Monday, June 06 2005 - 07:05:14 AM
* Ticks mod 64: 56
* uIP start time: Sunday, June 05 2005 - 10:18:36 PM
* Clock speed: 3.0 Mhz
* OS Version: 1.33
* Slashdotted: Monday, June 06 2005 - 07:13:14 AM

Dear Ask Slashdot

[Letter]

Dear Ask Slashdot,

In the time it took Bill Buzbee to create his homebrew CPU, I perfected the artificial vagina. Coincidently, it too is constructed out of 200 74-series TTL chips wired with thousands of individually wrapped wires. Now I ask: whose time was better spent?

Letter

Re:Dear Ask Slashdot

[HaydnH]

If you were a real geek you'd know that the web server is far cooler! ;P

Re:Dear Ask Slashdot

[NMEismyNME]

Well you two are a natural pair, aren't you? you have a homebrew sex toy, he has a homebrew web server. now all you need is someone to build a homebrew credit card processing server.

Hemos shows his evil side

[Colin Smith]

And cackling "3 megahertz, mwahahahaaaaaa". He pressed the submit button.

correction

[justforaday]

...it currently serves up live web pages...

It previously served up live web pages...

Re:Area man adds homebrew MMU to PDP-11/34

[cosinezero]

Back then, we just had a Slash - AND WE LOVED IT.

Looks Like He's Whipped Also

[HABITcky]

I love this part from his site:

When I said "my wife" in the previous section, I actually meant to say "my beautiful, intelligent and under appreciated wife who not only does way more than her share of the work around here, but also knows that this web site exists and checks it out from time to time."

Re:Looks Like He's Whipped Also

[leinhos]

I'd say it shows that he's *wise*. Preemptive flattery goes a long way when you spend too much time in the garage.

Re:Looks Like He's Whipped Also

[That's Unpossible!]

There's a fine line between "being whipped" and "getting laid more often."

A fine line.

Almost familar

[CBob]

Blinky lights~Real Computer

10 years ago I worked in a mainframe shop that had upgraded from the 4381 to a 9121. Neither system had much "eye candy". That meant that the client didn't have much to show off in the "big window" of the data center when tours/investors were guided thru.

Unless Tex was working.(and thankfully he almost always there). He was the client's rep that ordered paper by the semi for us & was able to bend Standard Register to his will with a mere phone call(one semi load of paper a year will usually do that, we did multiples)

Tex would lead the tour to the window and happily point to the elderly IBM network controller(box was actually blue on the sides, model forgotten) with all its blinking status leds and tell em "there is the computer".

They'd make "pretty lights" noises and continue along, Tex would grin from ear to ear & we'd have to wait till they left before we could run outta air laughing.

Tex dreaded the times anyone talked about network upgrades.

THREE MILLION!!!!

[WPIDalamar]

Come on guys, this is 3,000,000hz! That's like, wow.

Modern computers come with like 2.4 or something. This is wAY WAY faster, no way will we slashdot it.

wonder if he's thought about load blancing

[Anonymous Coward]

All he has to do now is build 1000 more machines and one hell of a load blancer. :0

submitter guilty of gross negligence and vandalism

[Thud457]

That was just MEAN!

This is a prime case where the submitter should have : 1) warned the site's owner, 2) made arrangements for a mirror or coral cache or bittorrent whatever. Because you KNOW this bitch was gonna go down like a three-year-old trying to stop a stampeding herd of elephants.

And the alledged "management" of slashdot should have at least warned the poor sap before unleashing this upon his little corner of the web.

That said, this sounds uber-l33t, and I'm planning to check it out once the smoking rubble is cleared away.

How long does it take to rip a CD on this succa?!!

[Thud457]

DRM-free, beeyotch!!!!

The Amish Computer?

[Blitzenn]

Is this an Amish version of a web server or something? I know the Amish insist on doing things the hard way, such as plowing a field with a horse. Why would a person choose to build a system today using old tech such as this? Must be some religious thing or perhaps a new Amish Sect? Compish? Or is it simply Stupish? ;)

Mastercard

[farzadb82]

200 TTL chips for the CPU, $60
Wirewrap boards to put the chips on, $20
Wirewrap wire to hook everything up, $20
turning on your webserver, only to be slashdotted - priceless!