Developer Creates DIY 8-Bit CPU

MaizeMan writes "Not for the easily distracted: a Belmont software developer's hand-built CPU was featured in Wired recently. Starting with a $50 wire wrap board, Steve Chamberlin built his CPU with 1253 pieces of wire, each wire wrapped by hand at both ends. Chamberlin salvaged parts from '70s and '80s era computers, and the final result is an 8-bit processor with keyboard input, a USB connection, and VGA graphical output. More details are available on the developer's blog."

Comments

Re:A lenient definition of "make"

[grolschie]

...Even if he was studly enough to build it from vacuum tubes, he probably wouldn't be winding his own filaments.

Uh, maybe not. :-)

Re:It must be early....

[David Gerard]

You might, however, be able to adapt LUnix to it!

Re:That's how we used to make all hobby computers

[hughbar]

Exactly, I used to burn little holes in my shirts with the ferric chloride http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron(III)_chloride that we were using to etch circuit boards (they were masked with wax or aluminium paint). My mother was not pleased with this.

Then, as a private project, I built a half adder with washing machine relays but it never worked properly because of power supply problems (which was the 12v transformer from my train set).

As parent already said (but they're so PESKY and disrespectful): Hey you kids, GET OFF MY LAWN

Re:But does it run Vista?

[morgan_greywolf]

Well, your response applies slightly more to Linux (one would just have to implement a Linux kernel on the 8-bit CPU, which isn't likely to happen to anytime soon) and doesn't really apply to Vista at all. MIcrosoft would have to implement Vista, and unless there is sufficient market demand for this 8-bit CPU, they'll never do it, since the incentive for them to write an 8-bit Vista is approximately zero.

While it may be possible to write a Linux kernel for an 8-bit processor, this, too, is not likely, at least not a complete Linux kernel. Linux was pretty much designed and written from the ground up on a 32-bit processor with built-in low-level support for multitasking.

So, IOW, while you are theoretically correct, from a practical standpoint implementing Vista or Linux or any other modern OS, with the exception of FreeDOS, is virtually impossible. Hence, the GP's joke retains its original humor.

Done before... in 16-bits

[Elledan]

Magic-1, a 16-bit TTL-based, wire-wrap PCB computer.

Slashdot posted an article on Magic-1 when it was completed years ago as well.

Fantastic!

[adosch]

There needs to be more Steve Chamberlin's in the world. Personal (or enterprise, for that matter) computing hardware has hit a mass exploitation mark; computers today have such an abundance of resources, storage and processing power, any developer I've had to work with in the last half of decade sees the computer, much like Steve mentioned in TFA, as "...like black boxes... and understand what they do, but not how they do it." which leads to blatant disregard for anything, really sloppy ways of coding and development, zero ideology or best practice on how to truly harness and control resources efficiently. I don't expect anyone to have a physics background or be some die-hard electrical engineer, but there's definitely something to be said for growing up and working with early computer models where you had to give two shakes about that stuff. This is very cool, indeed.

Re:A lenient definition of "make"

[pHus10n]

Thank you for linking this video. Wow! This guy is the REAL Doc Brown lol. I watched every moment of it in awe. So that's how ol' school electronics was done :) Really, thanks!

Re:That's how we used to make all hobby computers

[earthforce_1]

The ROM in the computer on the moon lander used ferrite rope memory that was hand strung from bins of cores pre-programmed as '1's and '0's. The assemblers literally had a bin full of 1's and 0's.

Those where the days when assembly programming really meant just that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer