[HN Gopher] MyNOR - The yet minor computer. No CPU, no ALU, one ...
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MyNOR - The yet minor computer. No CPU, no ALU, one NOR-gate is
enough
Author : ColinWright
Score : 66 points
Date : 2023-06-21 09:28 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mynor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mynor.org)
| readingnews wrote:
| Just call Jeff Dean. https://i.imgur.com/0t9HJ.jpg
| jacquesm wrote:
| I love it how the whole thing uses ICs but the actual NOR gate is
| discrete.
| dools wrote:
| Do you mean because all of the 74H* series registers would have
| within them lots of different logic gates? I don't think this
| invalidates the premise -- ie. if you were using a CPU you'd
| still have registers.
| monocasa wrote:
| There's more than just registers and flip flops there. The
| 74HC08 is a quad 2-input and gate, and the 74HC32 is a quad
| 2-input or gate. Arguably the demuxes (74HC138 and 74HC139)
| are simply combinatorial logic too.
|
| But I'm of the opinion that the lack of an integrated logic
| ALU still makes it cute enough for discussion and praise,
| despite the anachronism of it's constituent components.
| jonsen wrote:
| Back in time you could buy a 1-bit microprocessor:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MC14500B
| brudgers wrote:
| Direct link to the MyNOR, http://www.mynor.org/mynor.htm
| redundantly wrote:
| Thank goodness it's not something that's for sale, cause that
| would have been another thing for my random tech pile.
| drivers99 wrote:
| He has the gerber files (and list of parts) though. I tried the
| gerber zip file at PCBWay and it's $51.33 for 5 boards ($63.12
| for 10) with shipping to the US. It would be a lot less if it
| wasn't bigger than 100x100mm. Buying all the right parts would
| be a lot of work if you don't usually do it though.
| redundantly wrote:
| Whyyyyy... Why couldn't you let me live in blissful
| ignorance?
| JorgeGT wrote:
| Furthermore, they sell a kit will all the parts =)
| https://www.budgetronics.eu/en/building-kits/mynor-single-
| bo...
| schoen wrote:
| Whoa, so, has anyone written a compiler to compile a
| high-level language to this architecture target?
| BasedAnon wrote:
| but it is
| [deleted]
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Memory is always the main issue for the computers like this.
| Unless you go with something like delay lines or Williams tubes,
| your total gate count will be dominated by memory.
| daggersandscars wrote:
| While not the subject of the article, his My4TH reminds me:
|
| Back in "the day", there was a replacement ROM for the
| ZX81/TS1000 that turned it into a FORTH machine. Was a cheap way
| to learn FORTH when the host machines were deep discounted near
| the end of their run.
| nickt wrote:
| It also reminds me of a similar option, the Jupiter Ace [1]
| which ran FORTH natively. The co-founders worked on the speccy
| and certainly borrowed some design aspects from the ZX81 (had a
| better keyboard though - ha!)
|
| The manual was great for its time, a little dated now but still
| a decent read [2]. It was reprinted in 2018 and still available
| [3].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Ace
|
| [2]
| https://archive.org/details/vickers_steven_jupiter_ace_4000_...
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.com/Jupiter-ACE-Manual-Anniversary-
| Progra...
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(page generated 2023-06-21 23:01 UTC)