4 Bit Homemade Computer

[Freyaday]

If it's in base 4, shouldn't they be quits?

[willrandship]

Meh, I don't really care about the naming convention. I got first place in the state science fair for it, though, and I  go to nationals in May!

[Ashbad]

I think there's a way to make an XOR gate with the three others once you have them made -- and I think it only uses one of each . Though then again, wiring that IRL will still be tricky

Good luck will

[willrandship]

not in quaternary, the making that is. The easiest gate to make is OR, but NAND is pretty simple too. The real trouble with XOR is, how exactly will it work? The AND, OR and NOT are pretty simple, but XOR in base 4 gets a little tricky.

AND - Lesser input ex 2 and 1 = 1
OR - Greater input ex 1 or 3 = 3
NOT - Inverse of input ex not 0 = 3, not 1 = 2
XOR =

The real trouble comes with the expansion to a higher range of numbers.

And thanks

[Ashbad]

Yeah, an OR machine is by far the simplest -- you know all you need is a few wires tied together?  NOT is actually possible with tons if wires and rudimentary midway bits, but my friend got it to work (only like twice) with 2 bit operations

[willrandship]

Well, you need diodes.....otherwise you can get messed up signals behind the OR, and bad stuff happpens. Not only needs a few transistors....

Don't forget this isn't binary.

[AngelFish]

not in quaternary, the making that is. The easiest gate to make is OR, but NAND is pretty simple too. The real trouble with XOR is, how exactly will it work? The AND, OR and NOT are pretty simple, but XOR in base 4 gets a little tricky.

AND - Lesser input ex 2 and 1 = 1
OR - Greater input ex 1 or 3 = 3
NOT - Inverse of input ex not 0 = 3, not 1 = 2
XOR =

The real trouble comes with the expansion to a higher range of numbers.

And thanks

XOR isn't exactly what it looks like. It's actually true when the number of true inputs is odd and false when the number of true inputs in even. Try using that

[Snake X]

so how will this thing give any way of output? I'm assuming definitely not by monitor or graphics.. so then what will it be?

[Ashbad]

You mean mine?  Well, my friend lost interest and so did I after he did, but our old output system was literally just reading the magnets -- if they were on top, then that bit was 1, else 0.  Very rudimentary way of checking, but it worked

[willrandship]

Well, I've got a screen built into the assembly of mine. Remember when I was asking for 16x16 redscale sprites? It was for an emulator of this processor I wrote in python.

Right now, I can't actually think of a use for XOR anyways, and since the command set is full, I can't exactly fit it in.

[Ashbad]

True, I guess XOR isn't always as useful as the other logics... But it is a good and easy way of resetting registers (in z80 specifically XOR A) but other than that, I don't use it as much personally -- and there's a way to achieve it anyways with the other logic instructions

[willrandship]

Well, heck, I can just go SetMx 0000 when I want my mem banks cleared. Other than that, all the functions either use said banks or are defined in the program, so I guess there aren't any registers X(

[Freyaday]

What about attaching a xylophone or bells (metal version of a xylophone)?

[Ashbad]

What about attaching a xylophone or bells (metal version of a xylophone)?

That actually would be extremely possible.  You could just implement the classic doorbell circuit, except instead of a high rate fapping piece of metal, it would be attached to a mallet.

Hark, what is that I hear?  The A register is equal to B flat? 

[ralphdspam]

Bb? I heard A#. 

Anyways, this is a great project idea!  How would the programs be sent?  Would we have to manually set the bits?