Posted: 12/16/2011 3:06:59 PM EDT
He built his own CPU from low level logic devices, runs minix. |
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I love when a guy can take his profession to another level at home.
For instance, I work in the natural gas industry and the guys around the office are always trying to optimize energy consumption. Who else but an engineer would add a heat exchanger/fan/pump setup to his wood fired stove? Lol Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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Quoted: It does take the phrase 'I built my PC' to a whole new level. It's really the difference between the guy on here who "built his latest rig on the AR platform" and the guy who machined all of it from raw aluminum and steel, and finished it off with his own plastic injection moldings. |
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Here is his web site. http://www.homebrewcpu.com/ ETA: From that link, is a link to that PC serving up a web page. Don't crash it with GD volume. |
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Quoted: It's interesting that he chose Minix. He did mention that it was a 4-bit processor (I'm not sure how this works with 4MB of RAM, however), which I suppose excludes even the earliest Linux kernels, which ran on nothing less than a 386, IIRC. He said he started out to just build a simple 4 bit computer, but kept on going, I assume it is a 16 bit. ETA: Web site implies 8 bit cpu with a 16 bit address space. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Developed his own instruction set, meaning he also had to write his own assembler and compile his own Minix. Bad. Ass. I just found this on the linked website. Sounds like fun  Although the hardware design and construction of Magic-1 usually gets the most attention, the largest part of the project (by far) has been developing/porting the software. To this end, I've had to write an assembler and linker from scratch, retarget a C compiler, write and port the standard C libraries, write a simplified operating system and then port a more sophisticated one. It's been a challenge, but a fun one. I suppose I'm somewhat twisted, but I happen to enjoy debugging difficult problems. And, when the bug you're trying to track down could involve one or more of: hardware design flaw, loose or broken wire, loose or bad TTL chip, assembler bug, linker bug, compiler bug, C runtime library bug, or finally a bug in the program in question there's lot of opportunity for fun. Oh, and I also don't have the luxury of blaming the bugs on anyone else. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Developed his own instruction set, meaning he also had to write his own assembler and compile his own Minix. Bad. Ass. I just found this on the linked website. Sounds like fun Although the hardware design and construction of Magic-1 usually gets the most attention, the largest part of the project (by far) has been developing/porting the software. To this end, I've had to write an assembler and linker from scratch, retarget a C compiler, write and port the standard C libraries, write a simplified operating system and then port a more sophisticated one. It's been a challenge, but a fun one. I suppose I'm somewhat twisted, but I happen to enjoy debugging difficult problems. And, when the bug you're trying to track down could involve one or more of: hardware design flaw, loose or broken wire, loose or bad TTL chip, assembler bug, linker bug, compiler bug, C runtime library bug, or finally a bug in the program in question there's lot of opportunity for fun. Oh, and I also don't have the luxury of blaming the bugs on anyone else. Amazing. In the 7 years I have wasted on this site that guy has accomplished a lot of that work. |
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I love when a guy can take his profession to another level at home. For instance, I work in the natural gas industry and the guys around the office are always trying to optimize energy consumption. Who else but an engineer would add a heat exchanger/fan/pump setup to his wood fired stove? Lol Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile I know a tin knocker tho did 
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I got some old circa 1985 D flip flops if he needs them !! still in the REALLY REALLY yellowed old radio shack packaging. it's more collectable if you don't take it out of the package right?
Personally to me that sounds like a pain in the ass, I'd rather just buy the Z-80 hardware and programmer and see if I can build a 'crazy climber' cabinet with programming from scratch! |
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I love when a guy can take his profession to another level at home. For instance, I work in the natural gas industry and the guys around the office are always trying to optimize energy consumption. Who else but an engineer would add a heat exchanger/fan/pump setup to his wood fired stove? Lol Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile I thought you were going to say that you hold it in all day at work so you can let em rip when you get home. |
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Quoted: A guy who can knock up the equivalent of a PDP11 from scratch did a pretty impressive thing. I wish they had a little more detail about what he used for the gates. Check the first PDF. http://www.homebrewcpu.com/technical_info.htm |
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Quoted:
I love when a guy can take his profession to another level at home. For instance, I work in the natural gas industry and the guys around the office are always trying to optimize energy consumption. Who else but an engineer would add a heat exchanger/fan/pump setup to his wood fired stove? Lol Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile My wood stove has a water jacket in it that I can use to heat the house or hot water ;-) T |
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It's interesting that he chose Minix. He did mention that it was a 4-bit processor (I'm not sure how this works with 4MB of RAM, however), which I suppose excludes even the earliest Linux kernels, which ran on nothing less than a 386, IIRC. It was good enough for Andrew Tannenbaum!
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That is fucking awesome, and I have no words. Of course, you immediately follow this post with .... "It's really the difference between the guy on here who "built his latest rig on the AR platform" and the guy who machined all of it from raw aluminum and steel, and finished it off with his own plastic injection moldings....Developed his own instruction set, meaning he also had to write his own assembler and compile his own Minix....It's interesting that he chose Minix. He did mention that it was a 4-bit processor (I'm not sure how this works with 4MB of RAM, however), which I suppose excludes even the earliest Linux kernels, which ran on nothing less than a 386, IIRC....Bad. Ass. I just found this on the linked website. Sounds like fun Check the first PDF. http://www.homebrewcpu.com/technical_info.htm" You and Fiver need different avatars, it is almost like you two are ovulating in synch when I read threads with both of you in it. TRG |
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Quoted: I used to have minix running on an old PC way back when, before linux even existed.Quoted: It's interesting that he chose Minix. He did mention that it was a 4-bit processor (I'm not sure how this works with 4MB of RAM, however), which I suppose excludes even the earliest Linux kernels, which ran on nothing less than a 386, IIRC. It was good enough for Andrew Tannenbaum! |
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The cool thing is, the computer is online and you can telnet to it and leave a message. ETA, well, I guess that would be the other cool thing. Yeah, he has it serving up a web page too. There is or was a web server powered by a potato out there somewhere... |
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The cool thing is, the computer is online and you can telnet to it and leave a message. ETA, well, I guess that would be the other cool thing. Yeah, he has it serving up a web page too. There is or was a web server powered by a potato out there somewhere... What can its page count go up to...? TRG |
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I used to have minix running on an old PC way back when, before linux even existed.
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It's interesting that he chose Minix. He did mention that it was a 4-bit processor (I'm not sure how this works with 4MB of RAM, however), which I suppose excludes even the earliest Linux kernels, which ran on nothing less than a 386, IIRC. It was good enough for Andrew Tannenbaum! Linus started Linux because he was unhappy with Minix, and because he wanted to DIH. |
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I love when a guy can take his profession to another level at home. For instance, I work in the natural gas industry and the guys around the office are always trying to optimize energy consumption. Who else but an engineer would add a heat exchanger/fan/pump setup to his wood fired stove? Lol Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile My wood stove has a water jacket in it that I can use to heat the house or hot water ;-) T Nice! Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |