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All of these project ideas sound quite interesting and challenging! I think that a nontrivial number of people would especially resonate with your first project

All of these project ideas sound quite interesting and challenging! I think that a nontrivial number of people would especially resonate with your first project idea, as it is truly a "bottom up" kind of effort that would probably enhance ones understanding of lots of computing-related things (also, thanks for introducing me to Project Oberon!). I'm also interested in the alternative multi-CPU system on a single chip you mentioned. I have no real experience with chip development, but it sounds like a very cool idea! Do you have previous experience with chip development, or would this be your first foray into that area?

philipswood 6y ago
No experience, but I think this is more reachable than it was years ago (at least in prototype form). I haven't done a recent survey and there might be better options now, but... I'd start with basic FPGA development with a hobbyist board (an Alchitry or Arduino Vidor or somesuch), learn a hardware description language, play a bit and then look as some open source CPU designs. There are a few open source designs with very low LUT (lookup table) counts, I'd probably start looking at those. What I have in mind is something super-simple, just enough to be able to implement a single object or function. I'm aiming at mapping a high-level language almost directly to gates. I don't have much of a plan for the interconnects yet, but I'm sure there should be some simple scheme I could start with. I'm not sure about actually getting to an ASIC chip, I'd probably just end up going for the biggest FPGAs I could afford or finding ways to interconnect a few smaller ones.
- didizaja 6y ago
  I'd agree with you about it being more reachable. Slightly related, but after I read your initial comment, I actually found this blog [0] by a guy at CMU who is manufacturing his own ICs at home. I'm definitely not super knowledgeable of the hardware space, but from what little I know, your current plan sounds reasonable and well-scoped! I wish you the best of luck with undertaking this project if you decide to go forward with it. [0]: http://sam.zeloof.xyz/ http://sam.zeloof.xyz/

philipswood 6y ago

No experience, but I think this is more reachable than it was years ago (at least in prototype form). I haven't done a recent survey and there might be better options now, but... I'd start with basic FPGA development with a hobbyist board (an Alchitry or Arduino Vidor or somesuch), learn a hardware description language, play a bit and then look as some open source CPU designs. There are a few open source designs with very low LUT (lookup table) counts, I'd probably start looking at those. What I have in mind is something super-simple, just enough to be able to implement a single object or function. I'm aiming at mapping a high-level language almost directly to gates. I don't have much of a plan for the interconnects yet, but I'm sure there should be some simple scheme I could start with. I'm not sure about actually getting to an ASIC chip, I'd probably just end up going for the biggest FPGAs I could afford or finding ways to interconnect a few smaller ones.

didizaja 6y ago
I'd agree with you about it being more reachable. Slightly related, but after I read your initial comment, I actually found this blog [0] by a guy at CMU who is manufacturing his own ICs at home. I'm definitely not super knowledgeable of the hardware space, but from what little I know, your current plan sounds reasonable and well-scoped! I wish you the best of luck with undertaking this project if you decide to go forward with it. [0]: http://sam.zeloof.xyz/ http://sam.zeloof.xyz/