this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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I could probably build a computer from scratch, but it's not gonna be a modern one with impossibly small microchips and bajillions of transistors. It's gonna be a room-sized behemoth with only like 8bits of memory that takes 24 hours to compute 1+1.
Reject modern devices, true computers require large rooms and the output of a small NPP to operate
If you only care about adding numbers, you can e.g. do that using water or marbles. You only need to build an XOR gate, an AND gate and an OR gate.
In case of water, the gate will have two inputs as water streams. They should be aligned so that when the streams hit each other, the water will flow into a cup in the center of the apparatus. When the streams don't hit each other, the water passes the first cup and flows into another cup on the bottom. Carrying the water out at the bottom is the XOR gate, carrying the water out at the center is the AND gate and both cups together are the OR gate.
Then it's just about setting up the circuit and that would be a full adder without electronics.
Check out Ben Eater on YouTube.
Or Steve Mould, who made a processor calculation using water for demonstration purposes.
https://piped.video/watch?v=IxXaizglscw
I’m hoping the guy from Primitive Technology will eventually work his way up to that at some point.
They're playing one of those games where you crash on a planet and go from rock to bow and arrow to quantum phase disruptors, but for real.
He uses a microcontroller though for his breadboard PC. A microcontroller that is built in a fab.
That's the 6502 one you're talking about though, what about the previous one (granted it still used a bunch of ICs, but not a microcontroller per se)
I was going to ask that disclaimer, but it's also a step closer and interesting nonetheless.
I'd also recommend Breaking Taps, while he does amazing stuff in a home lab it also has the disclaimer that he's able to get it already has some super interesting but rare stuff. Electron microscope etc.
I thought I saw someone making homemade, low power processors but for the life of me I can't remember who or where.
Sam Zeloof did it.
Sounds like something an alien would say, which is just what you want me to think!
You'd make Charles Babbage very smug with that kind of talk