Designing and constructing your own CPU (one extreme end of the hacking spectrum)

[andyg (@geekscape)]

hi All,

This is an interesting (but, perhaps a little dry) article about the
design of a "one instruction CPU" using FPGA ...

The One Instruction Wonder
http://www.ddj.com/embedded/221800122

I think it's a little disingenuous to claim that it is a "one
instruction CPU", where the various source and destination fields of
the single instruction reference functional units, which effectively
perform the common tasks that we'd expect from a typical instructions,
e.g. JMP (alter the program counter functional unit). However, it is
certainly a highly modular design, and that's interesting of itself.

A while ago, JoshB turned up to a CCHS meeting with some Xilinx
hardware. I wonder if there is much interest in FPGA, in general ?

These days, playing around with FPGA, is cheap in terms of dollars
(but, perhaps not in terms of your time !).

cheers andyg (@geekscape)