4 Nov
2005
4 Nov
'05
7:30 a.m.
Consider the very old Packard Bell PB250--22 bit words, fewer than 400
transistors and 2500 diodes, 63 instructions. Power consumption about
40
watts, exclusive of I/O:
So that is 3000 separate components that need to be handled.
A 100 TTL packages is probably easier to handle.
But yes, a computer without IC's has the higher geek factor.
The trick, of course, is to use bit-serial methods.
It seems to me
that
one could greatly simplify construction of a homebrew machine that way.
We're not doing this for speed, right?
No, but I suspect that for most classes of DIY TTL computers it is
actually more complex to make a bitserial machine than a 8 or 12 bit
parallel machine.
None of the publicised DIY machines is bitserial...
I still have a couple of 74hc181. One of these days....
Jos