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[Antioch]

So I was sitting behind my pc in my comfy chair and I suddenly realized that I don't actually know anything about how computers actually work. Sure I know the function of the RAM and the CPU etc, but how do they WORK.

So after quite some searching I stumbled upon the youtube channel of Ben Eater, who is creating a series about how to make your own homebrew computer and has the best explanation of how computers actually work I have ever seen.

This is his introduction video stating he plans to do a series on making an 8 bit breadboard computer from basic components:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyznrdDSSGM

And this is him programming it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PPrrSyubG0

As a mechanical engineer I have never been so exited about computer design in my life.

So I invite you all to share your ideas and comments about computer design!

[Levi]

When I was in university we had to build up and program most of a PDP-8.  It was fun, but it was one of those things where I didn't really have any idea what i was doing until the end when it all came together.

[SirQuiamus]

Cool project! Looks like a real-life miniature version of a dwarfputer.

There's also that guy who built a 16-bit micromacroprocessor out of discrete components, but I can't find the link right now. (It's been posted on Bay12 quite a few times, I think.)

[Dirst]

When I was in university we had to build up and program most of a PDP-8.  It was fun, but it was one of those things where I didn't really have any idea what i was doing until the end when it all came together.

Oldest beast I ever worked on was a PDP-11, but they both had that "backup" interface with the blinking lights and you literally flip switches to represent individual bits.  Fortunately the primary TTY was pretty reliable.

[Levi]

When I was in university we had to build up and program most of a PDP-8.  It was fun, but it was one of those things where I didn't really have any idea what i was doing until the end when it all came together.

Oldest beast I ever worked on was a PDP-11, but they both had that "backup" interface with the blinking lights and you literally flip switches to represent individual bits.  Fortunately the primary TTY was pretty reliable.

Neat.  Yeah we had to flip switches to program it in our class too.  I vaguely remember(it was 15 years ago) that the part that gave me the most grief was getting the clock working.

And it wasn't an actual PDP-8 we were working on, it was some kind of PDP-8 equivalent which was basically just a big breadboard and we had to program a bunch of chips and wire them together to make it all work right.  I wish I could find some pictures, but my google-fu is failing me.

[i2amroy]

So I was sitting behind my pc in my comfy chair and I suddenly realized that I don't actually know anything about how computers actually work. Sure I know the function of the RAM and the CPU etc, but how do they WORK.

As a mechanical engineer I have never been so exited about computer design in my life.

If you're that excited about it maybe you should have taken a few more Electrical Engineering courses.

As a computer scientist I feel no shame in telling you that a lot of modern computer hardware works on black magic shortcuts that are discovered and hidden behind high-level EE witchcraft. I mean sure almost any CS or EE person can tell you the basics of how they work, but once you make that leap from the "this is a basic, isolated, memory circuit" to "this is a basic printed circuitboard" you start to invoke all sorts of strange EE shenanigans.

[Max™]

You can see that effect when you get comfortable setting up minecart routes and such for fort tasks, and then watch a cartputer operate and realize all the little twists and kinks and such are deliberate choices to allow the system to work right.

I can grasp the microprocessor scale stuff with electrons being shuffled around bits of copper wire and silicon, I can grasp the planning layout level with the broad interconnects, I can grasp the system level stuff where it all comes together to do what I want, but the actual pushing electrons around and making them go through there, then here, then stop going that way? Wizardry.

[Antioch]

So I was sitting behind my pc in my comfy chair and I suddenly realized that I don't actually know anything about how computers actually work. Sure I know the function of the RAM and the CPU etc, but how do they WORK.

As a mechanical engineer I have never been so exited about computer design in my life.

If you're that excited about it maybe you should have taken a few more Electrical Engineering courses.

(...)

Heresy!

Actually I do feel electrical engineering is a field I feel painfully little about, most of it is indeed black magic to me. As an engineer I do have this urge to break everything down and look at how it works, but this gets you absolutely nowhere when it comes to electronics.