[geeks] Crackpot project, need some guidance

[Mouse]

>> One of the things I did in university was to build a small 4-bit CPU
>> from discrete logic;
> Do you still have any notes from that exercise?

No, that was decades of time and at least two major moves ago.

>> If you want to do a 16-bit CPU in discrete logic you may find it
>> easiest to do it serially, one bit at a time.
> That's pretty much what I did.  I built a 1-bit ALU, then used 16
> linked carry-out to carry-in in a serial line.

No, that's not what I meant.  I don't mean "build 16 of them and hook
them together".  I mean "build one of them and feed it the bits one at
a time".  You'll need to add a delay from carry-out to carry-in to get
carries to work right, but that's not hard.

If the rest of the thing is built as a parallel device, this isn't
really a particularly good idea.  But if you design the whole thing
bit-serial, you can save a lot of hardware.

> Logisim is a great tool, [...].

If it's a good match to what you want to do.  For me, actually
assembling a working circuit out of little packages is a major fraction
of the fun, so there's not much point in simulation, possibly except to
debug a design.

> Saves burning your fingers too :P

That's what solderless breadboards are for. :)

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