custom arc

bloodhound23 · Post by **bloodhound23** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:16 pm

This is random. I have now decided to create a custom computer architecture to write my operating system for.

earlz · Post by **earlz** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:20 pm

I know how much fun it would be to do(and I have tried it before)
but usually you stop at the design stage because you argue in your head that it is not practical and has no real use...

bloodhound23 · Post by **bloodhound23** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:00 pm

But does that really matter?

bloodhound23 · Post by **bloodhound23** » Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:18 pm

Though I am wondering what is the best electronic CAD tool for linux?

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 4:46 am

bloodhound23 wrote:Though I am wondering what is the best electronic CAD tool for linux?

The GIMP?

Hard to say really. There was a cross-platform tool in which you could write schematics and it even allowed you to convert it to a design for a printed circuit board. I forgot the name but it was pretty advanced.

I don't know of any linux programs that can test the inner logic of your system.

Laksen · Post by **Laksen** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:48 am

Are you thinking of Eagle, Combuster?

To OP: For circuit design look for Eagle from Cadsoft. It's very nice to use

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:22 am

Laksen wrote:Are you thinking of Eagle, Combuster?

To OP: For circuit design look for Eagle from Cadsoft. It's very nice to use

That's the one, yes

TheQuux · Post by **TheQuux** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:18 am

Also, check out gEDA and Icarus Verilog. It should be somewhat easier to prototype on some kind of PLD (eg, an FPGA)

I've actually been considering doing something similar... the Xylo (from KNJN.com) isn't too freakishly expensive, and it has a decent complement of user I/O (with a builtin DAC for VGA, etc)

I'll probably do that after I've finished writing my own language (I made the mistake of learning Lisp and Haskell, and C no longer cuts it :-)

--tq

AndrewAPrice · Post by **AndrewAPrice** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 5:08 pm

Custom architecture, language, and OS all in one?

This sounds like too much work for one person.

You could put together a company (non-for-profit, government or university funded, or perhaps open sourced online) and associate a team for each task (architecture, language, OS) split into smaller teams so you have a hierarchy of distributing the work.

Then you can overlook most of the operation and do most of the designing and some of the implementation with the team.

bloodhound23 · Post by **bloodhound23** » Mon Feb 04, 2008 5:27 pm

If you didn't notice I'm just sticking with asm right now.