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Mechanical CPU Clock

Posted by Soulskill on from the time-flies-when-you're-watching-ALUs-flipflop dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I designed this CPU clock to help people learn about how a CPU works. The Mechanical CPU Clock shows the basic building blocks of a CPU (ALU, buses, RAM, registers, and a Control Unit). It executes a set of instructions which will emulate a simple wall clock. A detailed build/explanation is available on instructables.com."

2 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Nice! But confused about writeup: by yndrd1984 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Brilliant work, but I find his terminology confusing.

    From what I can see, there's really only one register - since the "registers" are linked, he can only store a 4-bit number (plus an instruction counter in the form of the track "flag"). "Register B" is really an instruction to clear both the register and the instruction pointer, and "'registers A&C"' are really an [inc A, if A<11 then IP=0 else IP=1] instruction. From this perspective, it's a two-instruction, one-register machine.

    I only did that because I just couldn't get nine instructions and three different registers from watching the device function.

    Am I the only one to see it that way? Are both ways (at least partially) valid?

  2. Digi-Comp II Reincarnated? by Pokeadot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Reminds me of the Digi-Comp II that I had as a kid. It had the same rocker type mechanisms which simulated registers. See: "http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/digicomp_2.html#"