

Magic-1 is a homebuilt minicomputer, cpu and all - e1ven
http://www.homebrewcpu.com/

======
whakojacko
I built cpu in an computer architecture class and it was one of the most
useful things I have ever done, in terms of information learned. It was of
course extremely limited (4 bit, so only 16 instructions, 16 type of
instructions, 64 bytes of ram, only output was 4 leds for the single register,
etc) but a great experience.

~~~
ygd
What topics did you guys cover (in class)?

~~~
whakojacko
we started at the transistor level, building AND/OR gates. Then XOR/NAND etc,
then a simple ALU (using real nand/and/or etc chips) then a simple register,
etc all the way up, each step getting an integrated chip to replace what we
had built with smaller components in the previous step.

~~~
indy
For anyone whose interested in this sort of thing I highly recommend The
Elements of Computing Systems (<http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/>).

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AlexMuir
-I'm buying a laptop.

-Pah, a laptop? You want a desktop.

-Buying??? A real man builds a desktop.

-Builds it? Anyone worth anything builds from barebones.

-Barebones is for n00bs. I hand solder the whole thing together.

-Hand solder? You soft shite, I use a blacksmith's forge and a hot piece of iron.

-A hot piece of iron? I should be so lucky - I'm going back to basics and not using fire. I'm just bashing rocks together to get them the right shape.

(still, awesome achievement)

~~~
flannell
A hot piece of iron? Luxury. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a
septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper
bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a
day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would
thrash us to sleep wi' his belt. </python>

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elblanco
This my friends, is hacking.

~~~
godDLL
This guy worked on Froyo's JIT.

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noonespecial
He once built his own computer, out of nothing but TTL...

A picture should now appear with him surrounded by beautiful women and Dos
Equis. (Then Chuck Norris happens by, pauses, shakes his head, and mutters
_"Damn, that's cool."_ )

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aaronbrethorst
> It serves web pages at <http://www.magic-1.org>

Except when it's getting slammed by every person reading HN on a Friday night,
apparently.

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anurag
It's funny that a guy who built his computer from scratch used Microsoft
FrontPage to build the website for it.

~~~
sliverstorm
Theory A: he was too busy with hardware to waste his time writing a website
any other way

Theory B: he doesn't know much about or care about learning how to make web
pages- he is into hardware.

~~~
ygd
Theory C: Like me, he's too lazy to learn a proper web framework.

~~~
TGJ
Suggesting this guy is lazy shows a deep lack of understanding of the work
done making his own computer while juggling a wife and kids.

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kaitnieks
Let's try not to kill the computer by visiting webpages it serves all at once
:)

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chopsueyar
This is old, isn't it?

