
MyCPU – Homebrew Computer from Discrete Logic Gates - lainon
http://mycpu.thtec.org/www-mycpu-eu/index1.htm
======
HappyJoy
Ben Eater has a most excellent Youtube series in the same vein.

[https://eater.net/8bit](https://eater.net/8bit)

He even sells a kit with all parts and schematics included. It's easily one of
my favorite projects of all time and has inspired me to continue learning
more.

It's not close to MyCPU's level of complexity but is great to get you started.

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illys
Amazing! A computer made without microprocessor... or a processor made of TTL
circuits.

He has remade a system similar to the core of the great 1970's Xerox Alto /
Xerox Star series :-)

I never thought someone would remake a processor this way. I love that kind of
madness !

[edit: use the site backup if it fails to load: [http://mycpu.thtec.org/www-
mycpu-eu/index1.htm](http://mycpu.thtec.org/www-mycpu-eu/index1.htm) ]

~~~
vhodges
:) There are many (it's a thing):

[https://hackaday.io/projects?tag=CPU](https://hackaday.io/projects?tag=CPU)
(Some are FPGA, most are TTL) Including two risc-v implementations (one seems
stalled):

[https://hackaday.io/project/18491-worlds-first-32bit-
homebre...](https://hackaday.io/project/18491-worlds-first-32bit-homebrew-cpu)
(No activity for a while now) and
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEeZWGE3PwbansoxKjjMK...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEeZWGE3PwbansoxKjjMKHQqS_2cm8i60)

One I am particularly interested in is the Gigatron:

[https://hackaday.io/search?term=Gigatron&category=project%20...](https://hackaday.io/search?term=Gigatron&category=project%20project)
(Especially now that there's real IO being hacked in)

~~~
varjag
[http://www.homebrewcpu.com/](http://www.homebrewcpu.com/) is wire wrap 16 bit
computer that in fact serves the web pages and has telnet access.

~~~
that_jojo
Bill Buzbee is a goddamn legend

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AnIdiotOnTheNet
This is definitely on my "list of things I've always wanted to do but I
realized man is mortal and I have to prioritize". I'm a personal computing
enthusiast and it doesn't get much more personal than designing and building
your own architecture.

~~~
gcb0
not to mention the $50~200k on specialized test equipment you will have to buy
to even start on this path.

Nobody mentions this.

In every wire rat nest CPU picture, there is always several thousand dollars
of digilent and HP gear out of the frame.

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sureaboutthis
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.

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mkesper
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615314)

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musicale
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.

I believe the first two I saw were MAGIC-1 and BMOW (Big Mess o'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/single-step clocking.

Also relevant: the nand2tetris.org course, and Niklaus Wirth's TRM/RISC-3 (not
to be confused with Berkeley RISC-I or modern RISC-V) FPGA implementation.
Notably TRM/RISC-3 is incredibly simple but can run the whole Oberon system.

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/compiler support for MIPS.

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userbinator
Before I saw the German, I already had a feeling it was --- I'm not sure why,
but I've seen Germans use that style of page a lot (another example:
[https://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/basteln/PC/USB2LPT/ul-...](https://www-
user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/basteln/PC/USB2LPT/ul-16.en.htm) ). That and the
encouragement to build one yourself stood out.

This one looks very similar to a 6502, and seems to be much smaller than
another semi-famous discrete homebrew computer,
[http://www.homebrewcpu.com/](http://www.homebrewcpu.com/) \--- that one only
runs at half the clock speed, but the performance seems comparable.

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shakna
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.

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shawnz
Another similar project in addition to the ones mentioned here is the BMOW:
[https://www.bigmessowires.com/bmow1/](https://www.bigmessowires.com/bmow1/)

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neop1x
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
[http://www.buthowdoitknow.com/](http://www.buthowdoitknow.com/) and related
video [https://youtu.be/cNN_tTXABUA](https://youtu.be/cNN_tTXABUA)

------
earenndil
See also: homebrewcpu
[https://www.homebrewcpu.com/](https://www.homebrewcpu.com/) and megaprocessor
[http://www.megaprocessor.com/](http://www.megaprocessor.com/)

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kierenj
See also: [http://homebrewcpu.org](http://homebrewcpu.org)

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KC8ZKF
All those fancy-pants semiconductors...

Here’s a _real_ computer.
[http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/](http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/)

~~~
jhallenworld
You can now buy one:

[http://relaysbc.sourceforge.net/](http://relaysbc.sourceforge.net/)

(apologies for the self promotion..)

~~~
vhodges
I have been looking at your board on Tindie! Alas, I don't think it should be
my first major soldering job (if you don't count the board I stuffed 25 odd
years ago that my friend had to fix for me)

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

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

~~~
jetrink
A big one is that the page is served by the CPU it describes.

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JKCalhoun
Web ring is best ring.

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King-Aaron
> The website is slow because it is served by a MyCPU

I would imagine now that it's on the front page of HN, that poor MyCPU is now
on fire

~~~
gcb0
no ssl and a bunch of frames, that ultimately failed to load.

~~~
grenoire
HN hug of death at the lowest amount of votes on the post.

~~~
usernam33
The post made it to the frontpage, no surprise new visitors get greeted with
"Server busy" now.

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DogestFogey
Hugged to death. See [1].

[1]
[http://web.archive.org/web/20190516084513/http://mycpu.eu/](http://web.archive.org/web/20190516084513/http://mycpu.eu/)

~~~
rymate1234
Alternatively, the official mirror [http://mycpu.thtec.org/www-mycpu-
eu/index1.htm](http://mycpu.thtec.org/www-mycpu-eu/index1.htm)

~~~
sctb
Thanks! Since it's still down we'll update the link from
[http://mycpu.eu/](http://mycpu.eu/) to this.

------
virusduck
[http://archive.is/yZ71a](http://archive.is/yZ71a)

