[geeks] Crackpot project, need some guidance

[Mark Benson]

Thanks for the pointers. Sorry for the radio silence, I went away and
discussed it with a few people (including my dad, who was a homebrew computer
hacker back in the 70s/80s) and I think I need to pursue a couple of avenues
and build up understanding before attempting something crazy.

First I need to understand the various pieces of hardware inherent in a
microprocessor. I have done some work in the Logisim logic simulator and
goofed with some TTL logic and building my own gates, shift registers and
memory arrays. I've yet to look at anything beyond memory, like building
functions, I/O buffeting and handling etc. at logic level but that'll come
with time and more research. I am finding building and testing TTL level logic
really enthralling and satisfying. My best achievement so far is writing a
16-bit (4x4) addressable static RAM. Took half of Sunday to wire up on the
screen but it works really well. If anyone wants to see it I'll post some
screenshots.

The second thing is attacking a simple microprocessor with it's binary,
machine code and assembly languages. Haven't done much here yet. Any
recommendations? Dad recommended a 6800 or 6802 as he cut his teeth on those.

I will keep digging and playing and report back.

Some of the projects people have undertaken are really intreguing too - I like
the idea of building something from base to top that works like a real
computer.

--
Mark Benson

http://markbenson.org/blog