[HN Gopher] Build a Superscalar 8-Bit CPU (YouTube Playlist) [vi...
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       Build a Superscalar 8-Bit CPU (YouTube Playlist) [video]
        
       Author : lrsjng
       Score  : 122 points
       Date   : 2025-10-10 19:03 UTC (6 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | reader9274 wrote:
       | Ben Eater all day long over anyone else building a computer,
       | sorry
        
         | monocasa wrote:
         | There's no reason to have to choose.
         | 
         | Ben Eater is great, and Fabian is obviously inspired by him, so
         | in a lot of ways this is simply complementary to Ben Eater's
         | wonderful work.
        
         | WesBrownSQL wrote:
         | I don't think Ben would tell you to limit yourself. There are
         | many fantastic people doing these kinds of things. James
         | Sharman has been working on his system for years, and it is
         | fantastic because he is also a programmer.
         | https://www.youtube.com/@weirdboyjim
        
           | easygenes wrote:
           | I would also recommend Agon Light from the Byte Attic for
           | pedagogically important 8 bit computer YouTube: https://youtu
           | be.com/playlist?list=PLDf2uklC__d19aBeKd8OXMdup...
        
           | Dead_Lemon wrote:
           | This is the exact channel that came to mind when I saw the
           | headline, his work is fantastic.
        
       | easygenes wrote:
       | I got lucky stumbling across this series a few years ago after
       | just the first few videos were posted. Production value and
       | pedagogy are excellent. Glad to see him following through all
       | this time and getting to the heart of the matter recently.
        
       | nxobject wrote:
       | I applaud the author for doing this! A lot of "get your hands
       | dirty" processor digital design tutorials end up using designs
       | with a single microprogrammed control unit... which has no
       | relation to how the last few decades of microarchitectures,
        
         | mrguyorama wrote:
         | Indeed. My CS degree program taught me Karnough maps and some
         | other basics, and that was enough to build a simple
         | microprocessor design myself (it sucked, I neglected to build a
         | way to use immediate values in instructions so I had to build a
         | hacky "set" instruction that just set a register to a 15 bit
         | immediate)
         | 
         | But I mostly can't grok things like cache implementation, or
         | branch prediction, or pipelines, or register renaming and out
         | of order execution, or "store forwarding" and other necessary
         | features.
         | 
         | The simulator programs I was using have instant/single cycle
         | memory access, and the cpu had single cycle execution of all
         | instructions so it wasn't really necessary, but still.
        
       | globular-toast wrote:
       | I built Ben Eater's 8 bit computer on breadboards a few years
       | ago. It's a challenging but super rewarding project. I felt like
       | after years of doing computer stuff I could finally say I get how
       | it all works right down to the level of electronics, plus I
       | learnt some new skills and got really good at cutting little
       | wires to exactly the right length. It takes some dedication,
       | especially when you're building the same register module 3+
       | times, but I found it quite relaxing in the evenings, similar to
       | knitting in many ways.
       | 
       | I'm glad to see there are more projects in case I want to do it
       | again some day...
        
         | Joel_Mckay wrote:
         | After these types of projects, most students write better
         | software with implicit streamlined logic.
         | 
         | Notably, James Sharman's "Jam-1" includes an interesting series
         | on video timing for his games.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iHag4k4yEg&list=PLFhc0MFC8M...
         | 
         | Best regards =3
        
         | Graziano_M wrote:
         | I bought the kit and was making progress with it, but
         | unfortunately you have to be extremely lucky to have it work
         | with the way Ben wired it. He skips a lot of pull downs and
         | such, and adding all that is such a chore. More importantly, it
         | can't really fit on the breadboards with the additional
         | required circuitry, so you end up making a monstrosity that
         | doesn't doesn't look anything like his, which really takes away
         | from the value of his lessons.
        
           | globular-toast wrote:
           | Hmm... I didn't have this experience at all. Apart from
           | dotting a bunch of capacitors around the busses I didn't have
           | to do much differently. I was able to find the exact
           | components he used myself on Mouser. It's been a while though
           | so maybe I'm forgetting something or maybe I was just lucky
           | as you say. I should really dig it out and see if it still
           | works.
           | 
           | The only major thing I changed was I designed my own EEPROM
           | programmer as I found the way he was doing it laborious.
        
       | zkmon wrote:
       | Some channels like these are like collectibles. They are far
       | above over the stature of Youtube itself. Unfortunately we don't
       | have any other place to have these collectibles at, except on a
       | service owned by a private company, who runs it for their
       | business goals.
        
         | globular-toast wrote:
         | Agreed. I have been personally archiving anything I find high
         | quality for a while now. YouTube is fighting that, though. I
         | hope one day we can get past this and just share this stuff in
         | a distributed way (like BitTorrent).
         | 
         | I still think what we lack is an easy way to do the busking
         | model online. I refuse to pay by watching ads, and I refuse to
         | further monopolies and contribute to garbage like MrBeast by
         | paying for YouTube Premium or whatever. But if I could
         | regularly pay into an account, say PS20/month, and choose where
         | to allocate that to each month by doing something low friction
         | like clicking a button that would be perfect. I don't want to
         | automatically pay for everything I see because I don't think
         | it's all worth it. I'm not forced to pay for buskers in public
         | just because I heard them.
         | 
         | I think we have all the pieces we need for this kind of system,
         | namely BitTorrent, Bitcoin and the public domain or CC licences
         | etc. What we really need is polish and the network effect, ie.
         | the last 20%. Unfortunately we all know the last 20% sucks and
         | we only do it if we're forced to do it.
        
         | Lerc wrote:
         | They could easily exist somewhere else, but they would not be
         | found there
         | 
         | YouTube is the place where people find stuff, so if you want to
         | be found, you have to be there. I posted something on this
         | theme the other day. I would love for there to be a way for
         | people to contribute things like this to the world while being
         | supported so that they can do as much of it as they want.
         | 
         | I feel like YouTube is the worst video sharing platform with
         | the exception of every other one.
         | 
         | I'm not sure of the solution. PAD files for videos? Some
         | standard that lets people find videos no matter which service
         | they are hosted on, letting the hosting and interface be
         | provided by different entities. It would probably take
         | regulatory action before YouTube supported anything like that.
        
           | ge96 wrote:
           | Been finding indie music producers in the dream pop/shoegaze
           | genre, seems better than Spotify recs
           | 
           | These are videos not YT music
        
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