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You can order a whole batch of chips and wire them up on breadboards without sending away to have a PCB made. The PCB step is the last one when you want to fina

You can order a whole batch of chips and wire them up on breadboards without sending away to have a PCB made. The PCB step is the last one when you want to finalize your computer and package it up. Ben Eater actually has a free course on YouTube [1] all about building a breadboard computer! [1] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2565dvjafglHU https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2565d...

fc417fc802 2y ago
There's just a different emotional sense between manufacturing the lego bricks yourself versus mail ordering the magic blocks that you can assemble into a finished product.
- chongli 2y ago
  Lego bricks is an apt analogy. I don't know how many people would actually care to manufacture their own Lego bricks but millions of people enjoy putting Lego together. Sam Zeloof [1] actually went through the exercise of making his own semiconductors from scratch. It's a lot of chemistry and experimentation and quite interesting as an exercise, but not at all practical for building your own computer. Printable transistors would take away the nasty chemistry bits that Sam had to deal with but otherwise wouldn't help much with making practical devices. Computers have a lot of very standard, "Lego brick" or jellybean components. Stuff like muxes/demuxes, shift registers, adders, and the like. These are the components you can buy off the shelf to build your own computer. Building these yourself on giant sheets of paper with a printer might be interesting but you'd get a far less practical, usable computer out of the deal. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@SamZeloof/videos https://www.youtube.com/@SamZeloof/videos
- rgzz 2y ago
  I don't know much about this topic but you still need the magic bricks in the printer to make the magic bricks though, no? I guess this can be either depressing or relieving but I'm in the former category, I wish you could do this stuff from sand or something, without relying on modern technology, would be fun.
  - fc417fc802 2y ago
    In my mind the printer counts as a tool so it's a different category. Also you could always do the same by hand with a mask. The feature size might be a bit larger though. As to doing it all "from sand". You can! At least sort of. It's always a question of how far down the stack you want to take it. After all you probably need to source rare earths from somewhere that isn't your backyard. Check out pictures of the old processes before automated VLSI. It was all done by hand including crystalizing the silicon. You'll need a clean room and a bunch of weird supplies though.

fc417fc802 2y ago

There's just a different emotional sense between manufacturing the lego bricks yourself versus mail ordering the magic blocks that you can assemble into a finished product.

chongli 2y ago
Lego bricks is an apt analogy. I don't know how many people would actually care to manufacture their own Lego bricks but millions of people enjoy putting Lego together. Sam Zeloof [1] actually went through the exercise of making his own semiconductors from scratch. It's a lot of chemistry and experimentation and quite interesting as an exercise, but not at all practical for building your own computer. Printable transistors would take away the nasty chemistry bits that Sam had to deal with but otherwise wouldn't help much with making practical devices. Computers have a lot of very standard, "Lego brick" or jellybean components. Stuff like muxes/demuxes, shift registers, adders, and the like. These are the components you can buy off the shelf to build your own computer. Building these yourself on giant sheets of paper with a printer might be interesting but you'd get a far less practical, usable computer out of the deal. [1] https://www.youtube.com/@SamZeloof/videos https://www.youtube.com/@SamZeloof/videos
rgzz 2y ago
I don't know much about this topic but you still need the magic bricks in the printer to make the magic bricks though, no? I guess this can be either depressing or relieving but I'm in the former category, I wish you could do this stuff from sand or something, without relying on modern technology, would be fun.
- fc417fc802 2y ago
  In my mind the printer counts as a tool so it's a different category. Also you could always do the same by hand with a mask. The feature size might be a bit larger though. As to doing it all "from sand". You can! At least sort of. It's always a question of how far down the stack you want to take it. After all you probably need to source rare earths from somewhere that isn't your backyard. Check out pictures of the old processes before automated VLSI. It was all done by hand including crystalizing the silicon. You'll need a clean room and a bunch of weird supplies though.