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custom arc

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:16 pm
by bloodhound23
This is random. I have now decided to create a custom computer architecture to write my operating system for.

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 2:20 pm
by earlz
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...

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:00 pm
by bloodhound23
But does that really matter?

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:18 pm
by bloodhound23
Though I am wondering what is the best electronic CAD tool for linux?

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 4:46 am
by Combuster
bloodhound23 wrote:Though I am wondering what is the best electronic CAD tool for linux?
The GIMP? :twisted:

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.

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 5:48 am
by Laksen
Are you thinking of Eagle, Combuster?

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

Posted: Sun Feb 03, 2008 6:22 am
by Combuster
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 :wink:

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 4:18 am
by TheQuux
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

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 5:08 pm
by AndrewAPrice
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.

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2008 5:27 pm
by bloodhound23
If you didn't notice I'm just sticking with asm right now.