Homemade device/IC/LCD/Buttons/Processors/Chips/Beeper possible/affordable ??

Stop listening to whoever it is that told you to start with PCBs or FPGAs. Those are not for beginners who just want to play around. That's like telling someone who just wants to build a model airplane and see if it flies that he should start with a space shuttle or a machine shop.

I suggest that you start with a BasicX BX-24. Cheap, easy to use, can do a bunch of stuff. Then, if you later want to get into more advanced areas, you will have an idea as to which way to go.

Start by looking here:

The BX-24:

Cool things that other people have done with them:

Some of the stuff you are likely to want to get:

BTW, if anyone tries to steer you towards a Basic Stamp instead of a BasicX, ask them if they have looked at the price, performance, and features of both products. The Basic Stamp was the first - which is why it's so popular - but it's no longer the best.

There are several Xilinx FPGA demo boards around. A Xilinx chip is a general-purpose logic chip, full of fairly simple logic blocks and routing switches. It's dynamically programmed, as often as you like.

The Xilinx WebPack software is free, and a demo board costs something like $150. They usually have a breadboard area for adding other stuff, and an i/o connector and some led's you can blink. You design and compile on a PC, and load the resulting config file into the FPGA to implement your logic design.

You can program a Xilinx by schematic entry of virtual parts (gates, counters, flipflops) or you can program in Verilog or VHDL. I'd strongly recommend you do both, schematics first, and not treat FPGA design as just another programming language.

Read up on "synchronous state machines" so you don't wind up an async hairball 555-timer sort of designer. For extra credit, interface the Xilinx to an ADC or a DAC, make some sounds or filter effects maybe.

John

chip,

maybe

thingy

Well I don't know if this basicx chip is the right thing for me ;)

It has so much functionality... it's like a tiny little pc, with a network card and ram and a clock and everything onboard.

While I might be a hardware newby I am not a software newby ;)

And I really do want to make/write my own little super extremely little risc chip as someone called it :)

My little cpu should be able to do what an intel/athlon can do and beyond: ( Actually the basicx can do what an intel and athlon can do :) probably even more ;) )

1. memory operations. ( copy memory, etc )
2. integer operations. ( addition, multiply, etc )
3. maybe even some kind of floating point or rational number math.
4. boolean support
5. jump instructions
6. communication with main memory etc

So I have defined two requirements:

1. A little cpu chip. Maybe if it's little enough I could simply build it with gates and stuff like or,and,nand,xor and all kinds of stuff.
2. A memory chip. Where data and instructions will be.

However I need to be able to test the chip.

I want it to add or multiply 2 big integer numbers and display it across an LCD display or maybe even some leds will do ;) (scrolling leds yeeeah ! :))

Maybe some buttons or thingies to input the numbers or binary numbers or whatever ;) switches lol from the past haha :)

Maybe later I could make:

1. A network like chip
2. Any other communicating thingy.

I want to try and make a whole new kind of chippie ;)

Just to see if it can be done ;)

Then later it might be cool to have some kind of communicating going between my pc and the thingy maybe via serial port

The lowest entry barrier is a

and either of these

(More PIC-vs-AVR zealotry here)

Tools

Most beginner's question can be answered thru the Usenet Archives:

You could look at opensource projects on processor architecture. They have a variety of synthesizable cores. Or you could go back a bit in hardware/time and look in the old Bit Slice approach - AMD and Mick & Brick's Bit Slice Design Series/Book.

Blakely

Ah My mistake. I assumed that when you wrote that you wanted to "write some code and then dump it onto some kind of chip, maybe hook it up to something...small LCD display...some kind of beeper...buttons for input" that you wanted to write some code and then dump it onto some kind of chip and hook it up to something such as a small LCD display, some kind of beeper, etc.

Assuming that what you wrote above is what you wish to do, why not just start doing it? You will need:

A proto-board (small, white plastic, has holes in it for ICs and resistors, capacitors, etc., everything connects with jumper wires) Somewhere along the line you will, no doubt, wish to switch to a construction method that allows more complexity, but the proto-board is a fine place to start.

A cheap 5V power supply.

A bunch of 74HCxxx parts and a few other kinds of parts.

Time and effort to learn all the things you will need to learn.

-------------------------------------------------------

First you should build a logic probe. This is a circuit you can connect to other circuits to see whether they are putting out a 1 or a zero. Many circuits on the web.

Your next step will be to build a clock circuit. I suggest starting with a frequency of 32.768 KHz. Millions and millions of tiny RISC processors are in service running at that speed. Later you can think about going faster. Many circuits on the web.

Next, build a divider so you can reduce your clock to 1 Hz for testing purposes - so you can see what's going on.

Then you start putting together your logic gates. You can add flip-flops for RAM, jumpers for ROM. LEDs for outputs, switches for inputs, etc.

Also see:

chip,

maybe

thingy

Elektor magazine has a board for an Altera FPGA with some LEDs, 7segments and buttons

Wim

Yes, a proto board and 74xxx TTL chips - lots of fun.

See if you can find a copy of Dan Lancaster's TTL Cookbook (I just checked ebay and amazon - you are in luck).

Have fun.

The good old days, when we could home build and program from scratch machines as good as what you could buy.

Tom

Guy Mac>

Hi Skybuck (and, delurk and hello to everyone else)

Here's my suggested shopping list, though I'm not sure what "a fortune" means to you.

Some books you might benefit from reading:

All of these are standard undergraduate-level texts, but I still find them useful to refer to when doing "real" architecture work.

When you've digested those and are ready to start playing:

Again, this is simple enough to learn on and big enough to do some very interesting work with.

However, please note that you don't need an FPGA board to do actual experiments. There are a number of free simulation and experimentation tools available. Try looking at:

They all work at different levels of abstraction, so have a play and see what level you are most comfortable thinking at.

- Derek

DO NOT CROSS POST TO COMP.ARCH.

YOUR TRIVIA IS OF NO INTEREST TO US.

--

Seek simplicity and mistrust it. Alfred Whitehead

A witty saying proves nothing. Voltaire

DO NOT CROSS POST TO COMP.ARCH

--

Seek simplicity and mistrust it. Alfred Whitehead

A witty saying proves nothing. Voltaire