If you have been following my blog then you know that I have been talking about many things that deal with learning to build your skills at programming like learning to build a compiler. I am studying two old books for this. Crafting a Compiler which dates back to around 1992 and now I have Compiler Construction dated 1985. This is just to get back to when I first started learning computer science. Plus these older books I am using to learn the foundation were cheap. Like, less than $20 for both. Go Thiftbooks.com and Amazon.com! I will buy an up-to-date book later. Why later? Because I am learning Assembly Language as well.
Well, in the last post I mentioned that I was trying to figure out the next big computer CPU, the 128bit CPU! I got some help on where to begin by reading the book I just got, Programming with 64-bit ARM Assembly Language by Stephen Smith. Currently I am only on page 69 so I went to my other source, YouTube!?! I found a channel on there by Ben Eater. He has a video on the channel titled 8-bit CPU control logic.
Ben Eater explains in this video that you can program the CPU however you want. That is key to understand why Linux, Apple Mac, and Windows CPUs have been different and why programs do not work on all computers. As Ben continues to explain how to program and develop the 8-bit CPU, you should see that if he uses two chips for 8-bit logic you need 16 chips for 128-bit logic. If you didn’t see that key bit of information watch the video again. That is my theory anyway.
Ben has a complete video series and parts kits that he sells on his website Eater.net for you to follow along with the videos to build your own 8-bit computer. Which you should know that 8-bit is before Windows 3.0 so you will have to design your own DOS like operating system if you need one. You will have to buy the chip programmer to create your computer but that is part of the cost. But you will be able to have a return on investment if you choose to go into hardware design or other fields that you program chips. Maybe it will help bring out the inventor in you!
I hope that all the brain storming you must do to understand what I am giving you direction to do is not too overbearing. All I want is for you readers to see where Computer Science is going and places you should start. I do not know Ben Eater, but you can be assured that I would not send you to a link that didn’t make it easy to understand what CPU design involves. I have not thought out and laid out every piece needed to build this processor demo so I can’t get into the nuts and bolts of it just yet. This blog posting you should see as my inventor’s notes only!?!
That will conclude today’s post. I hope that you have learn something or plan to research Ben Eater’s channel and website to learn something more. If I have gotten you to that point I am done my job. Have a blessed day!
