I've been following Ben's videos on YouTube ever since he started this project and have been totally transfixed. His approach to building an 8-bit computer on a breadboard has also spawned a bunch of interest from the community.<p>Just search "my ben eater" on YouTube and you'll find many other people following his steps and making their own computers; some even going as far as to improve upon the original. It's really quite awesome to see.<p>Hats off to Ben. His succinct videos have done much more for my understanding of low level computing than any computer science professor I've had -- and all through only video.
This is really neat! Also if you want to learn to build a computer from scratch without hardware, just to learn how computers work, The Elements of Computing Systems is a great book to check out. It's used as a text in some CS programs but it is very readable and easy to follow and the software is free and online.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building-Principles/dp/0262640686/" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building-P...</a><p><a href="http://www.nand2tetris.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nand2tetris.org/</a> is the website for it.
Watching Ben's inspired me to finish my Brainfuck-based CPU designed a few years ago: <a href="https://hackaday.io/project/4237-mental-1-a-brainfuck-cpu" rel="nofollow">https://hackaday.io/project/4237-mental-1-a-brainfuck-cpu</a><p>Right now it has PS/2 keyboard input, and a 40x2 character display output.<p>The biggest help was his sensible clock design. I modified it a bit in my design, but the techniques he demonstrates in his videos are incredibly helpful and provide a good base to build off of.
Always love to see these projects because if I had made a clone of myself to to the other work, I'd be doing things like this.<p>Somewhat surprised that you can still buy LS TTL. I'd have thought it'd be replaced by some 1.5V supply ultraBiCMOSwhatever by now. Or a single die that you program to be whatever last-century TTL function you want, via its WiFi interface...<p>Time was I has the entire 74xxx series memorized. Long since paged out to make way for more important stuff in my brain.
<a href="http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=17" rel="nofollow">http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=17</a><p>A Replica 1 is an Apple 1 clone made with permission from Steve Wozniak that people can build from a kit. It is an 8 bit microcomputer with Apple Integer BASIC and optional casette tape interface.
I enjoyed building this computer a lot. But Ben has not yet done a schematic set. so I made my own in kicad and published them
<a href="https://github.com/kyllikki/eda-designs/tree/master/SAP-BE" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/kyllikki/eda-designs/tree/master/SAP-BE</a><p>The PDF is also there if you do not want to install kicad
I highly recommend Ben Eater's YouTube channel; great video tutorials. He manages to cover a lot in short videos. (Also, consider supporting him on Patreon :)
two months ago on HN:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14450945" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14450945</a>
i'd love to see a real "from scratch", that is building your own electronical components ( or something that substitutes, such as the lamp or anything else they used back in the time).
Earlier today I looked up that the fastest 74-series are the TI 74AUC line.<p>Add some nixie tubes, and you have a steampunk wet dream.<p>Find ye parts:<p><a href="http://octopart.com" rel="nofollow">http://octopart.com</a>
<a href="http://findchips.com" rel="nofollow">http://findchips.com</a>