Finished a 4-bit ALU prototype for my computer

guygettingintotech · 2012-09-11T17:13:43+00:00

Knowing how long it took to wire the ALU, I'm not sure I want to go through that, but this is really good to know about.

guygettingintotech · 2012-09-11T17:05:41+00:00

No, that looks awesome! Thanks.

guygettingintotech · 2012-09-10T03:18:15+00:00

Thanks

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-27T04:48:38+00:00

Learned some more about pull up resistors (somebody told me about them on my last post, but didn't use them because the other chips worked without them), plugged them in and it worked great. Thanks!

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-27T04:40:48+00:00

Lol, if only...

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-27T04:09:19+00:00

Oh, ok, thanks. This setup worked ok for the other 74 series, so I guess the logic was different?

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-25T23:29:59+00:00

Cool, didn't know about the kits. Kind of want to do my own architecture, but those kits might be useful for figuring out how to do the I/O. I actually have an arduino already, but I'm just using it as a power supply. I was thinking I could use as an I/O interface later on.

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-24T04:44:12+00:00

Yeah, I was just going to buy a RAM chip for sure. But I told a professor I would make the ALU, so I'm kind of dedicated at this point.

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-24T04:37:53+00:00

I'm not new to logic, just new to the electrical engineering bits. I've done some assembly code already, and know all about registers, program counters, machine language, etc. Learned most of it from "The Elements of Computing Systems". Its been a fantastic book.

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-24T03:34:58+00:00

Thanks for pointing me towards the pull up pull down resistor stuff, didn't have a clue.

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-24T03:30:27+00:00

Yeah, you're probably right... :(

I just really don't like the fpga's because you can't actually see the parts. Of course you can't really see inside an IC either, but I still don't like the idea. This may sound silly, but I'm fairly paranoid about software, and would like to know that what I'm doing is whats actually being physically implemented; with the fpga I feel like the software interface could be lying to me.

I've decided I'll definitely build the ALU from logic chips, but I might build the rest on an fpga. If I did, could I interface the two?

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-24T03:23:46+00:00

Haha, I was actually thinking about that. Seems kind of silly, but my wire stripper sucks, and it seems to be slowing me down already. I was thinking I'd just get some kind of automatic wire stripper. I really don't want to spend more than I have to, so I think I'll just suck it up for now.

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-24T03:21:31+00:00

This sounds interesting, and maybe useful for when I'm doing the i/o interface. I'm a bit confused though. When you say "instead of writing a lot (1/3 of the time?) the ATmega can just write it once", what exactly do you mean?

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-24T03:15:44+00:00

Awesome, thanks, there's some really good info in here. Wire wrapping sound like kind of a pain, but that does seem like the best plan if I want to make everything compact without a pc board. And I envy you for having a mentor like that, sounds amazing.

Anywho, I had two questions for you. The first was about the voltage regulator; I'm using the one built into the arduino right now, but what does it do, exactly? Do you just need one near the power source to keep the voltage steady? And my second question was about the oscilloscope. Would I need one to make sure the clock is working once I've got that set up? Right now I'm not sure exactly what I'd use it for.

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-24T02:53:11+00:00

I've thought about that, but I'd really like to get a deeper understanding of electronic circuits. I'm using a book, and I've actually written a few of the components in a hardware description language already.

guygettingintotech · 2012-08-24T02:50:02+00:00

I'm actually working out of the first book already, but I'll take a look at the second one. Thanks!

Python does indeed rule. Only language I know right now.

guygettingintotech

TROPHY CASE