MyCPU – Homebrew Computer from Discrete Logic Gates

Ben Eater has a most excellent Youtube series in the same vein.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eater.net&#x2F;8bit" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;eater.net&#x2F;8bit</a><p>He even sells a kit with all parts and schematics included. It&#x27;s easily one of my favorite projects of all time and has inspired me to continue learning more.<p>It&#x27;s not close to MyCPU&#x27;s level of complexity but is great to get you started.

Amazing! A computer made without microprocessor... or a processor made of TTL circuits.<p>He has remade a system similar to the core of the great 1970&#x27;s Xerox Alto &#x2F; Xerox Star series :-)<p>I never thought someone would remake a processor this way. I love that kind of madness !<p>[edit: use the site backup if it fails to load: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mycpu.thtec.org&#x2F;www-mycpu-eu&#x2F;index1.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mycpu.thtec.org&#x2F;www-mycpu-eu&#x2F;index1.htm</a> ]

This is definitely on my &quot;list of things I&#x27;ve always wanted to do but I realized man is mortal and I have to prioritize&quot;. I&#x27;m a personal computing enthusiast and it doesn&#x27;t get much more personal than designing and building your own architecture.

Previous discussion: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10615314" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10615314</a>

I love these homebrew CPU projects. I saw one one in person and was amazed (and impressed by the insane dedication as well as the madness of wire-wrapping 1970s-era TTL components into a CPU) - then a year later I saw two of them!! Then I saw a third.<p>I believe the first two I saw were MAGIC-1 and BMOW (Big Mess o&#x27;Wires). I also really liked the MOnSter 6502, a beautiful board-level reimplementation of the 6502 in surface-mount discrete components, with LEDs on the data lines and optional slow&#x2F;single-step clocking.<p>Also relevant: the nand2tetris.org course, and Niklaus Wirth&#x27;s TRM&#x2F;RISC-3 (not to be confused with Berkeley RISC-I or modern RISC-V) FPGA implementation. Notably TRM&#x2F;RISC-3 is incredibly simple but can run the whole Oberon system.<p>In the modern era, I think FPGAs are the killer platform for computer architecture experimentation. There are multiple free MIPS implementations for FPGA and of course there is great OS&#x2F;compiler support for MIPS.

Before I saw the German, I already had a feeling it was --- I&#x27;m not sure why, but I&#x27;ve seen Germans use that style of page a lot (another example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www-user.tu-chemnitz.de&#x2F;~heha&#x2F;basteln&#x2F;PC&#x2F;USB2LPT&#x2F;ul-16.en.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www-user.tu-chemnitz.de&#x2F;~heha&#x2F;basteln&#x2F;PC&#x2F;USB2LPT&#x2F;ul-...</a> ). That and the encouragement to build one yourself stood out.<p>This one looks very similar to a 6502, and seems to be much smaller than another semi-famous discrete homebrew computer, <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.homebrewcpu.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.homebrewcpu.com&#x2F;</a> --- that one only runs at half the clock speed, but the performance seems comparable.

I wonder if dennis-mycpu is still around to answer questions? This is an awesome build, and demonstrating it by serving the site is a fantastic idea.

Another similar project in addition to the ones mentioned here is the BMOW: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bigmessowires.com&#x2F;bmow1&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bigmessowires.com&#x2F;bmow1&#x2F;</a>

A nice project, there are more homebrew CPUs - physical or FPGA cores. But they are often complex. I was finally able to understand the basics of CPU workings from an awesome book <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buthowdoitknow.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.buthowdoitknow.com&#x2F;</a> and related video <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;cNN_tTXABUA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;cNN_tTXABUA</a>

See also: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;homebrewcpu.org" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;homebrewcpu.org</a>

See also: homebrewcpu <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.homebrewcpu.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.homebrewcpu.com&#x2F;</a> and megaprocessor <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.megaprocessor.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.megaprocessor.com&#x2F;</a>

All those fancy-pants semiconductors...<p>Here’s a <i>real</i> computer. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.cecs.pdx.edu&#x2F;~harry&#x2F;Relay&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.cecs.pdx.edu&#x2F;~harry&#x2F;Relay&#x2F;</a>

I&#x27;m curious does anyone know what the last substantial commercial computer that shipped with CPUs made out of discreet logic chips like this was?

Apologies if this is a silly question but how does this differ from other homemade cpus that appear every so often?

Web ring is best ring.

&gt; The website is slow because it is served by a MyCPU<p>I would imagine now that it&#x27;s on the front page of HN, that poor MyCPU is now on fire

Hugged to death. See [1].<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20190516084513&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mycpu.eu&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20190516084513&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mycpu.eu&#x2F;</a>

I did this for a living in the 1980s--CPUs from TTL. My artistic side wants to build a small running computer from all TTL inside a plexiglas cube with all the chips glued to the walls and the interconnecting multi-colored wires exposed with a small display of something.

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;yZ71a" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.is&#x2F;yZ71a</a>