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back to article Holy Crap! Bloke finishes hand-built CPU project!

Have you ever seen an up-close view of how a computer processor works? If you're in the UK, you can head over to Cambridge and see the process firsthand, thanks to the work of Reg friend James Newman, who has finally finished constructing his 16-bit masterpiece, the Mega Processor. You may remember the story of James and his …

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  1. trenchfoot

    "I have to find some kind of home for it at some point because I want mine back"

    Science museum really should be interested in this (if they're not I shall stop taking my kids there forthwith!) What an amazing thing to have done, well done indeed sir.

    67 0 Reply
    1. Mayhem
      Reply Icon

      Very much so, especially if they put an old 16bit machine next to it for scale (Megadrive maybe?), and a modern system-on-a-chip under a magnifying glass at the end.

      5 0 Reply
  2. Phil Endecott

    Fantastic!

    There is someone on the planet who is worse at tetris then me....

    But he's surely better at soldering!

    9 0 Reply

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    An incredible piece of work. Very impressive.

    11 0 Reply
  4. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    Bah...

    We did it with a single NAND gate (made from twigs and moss), and a couple of tubes filled with mercury. Turing complete. As soon as we powered it up, it offered us a free upgrade to Windows 10.

    82 3 Reply
    1. Mark 85
      Reply Icon
      Trollface

      Re: Bah...

      Moss? Mercury? We would have been happy to have had those. We had to make do with 3 day old dung and dehydrated dog pee. All we were offered was Vista. And were proud of it, too.

      34 3 Reply
      1. FIA Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Bah...

        Vista? VISTA? Mr La-de-da with your fancy memory protection. YOU were lucky. WE used to dream of Vista; whilst hand whittling our 2 bit CPUs using nothing more than hope and the dog eared edge of a wordstar function key strip; and one of the bits was permanently zero due to Father selling it and replacing it with an 'oola 'oop in the hope we wouldn't notice. Upgrade (paid for, mind!) was Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95, with the pinball game removed and the theme permanently set to that horrid brown one.

        26 0 Reply
        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Bah...

          "hand whittling our 2 bit CPUs"

          2? You had 2????

          We just had an MK SPST found in a junk yard.

          5 0 Reply
  5. ecofeco Silver badge
    Pint

    Well done

    Well done. Very well done. A sincere congratulations.

    20 0 Reply
  6. Mikel

    16 bits? Nicely done!

    I would have gone for 8. Lazy me.

    16 0 Reply
    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: 16 bits? Nicely done!

      discrete 6502 4000 odd transistors and only a foot square

      7 4 Reply
      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        Meh

        Re: 16 bits? Nicely done!

        @YAAC

        Not really the same thing at all. That one has a much simpler processor, and all done on a single inaccessible 4 layer PCB with surface mount components.

        4 1 Reply
        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: 16 bits? Nicely done!

          Just thought the readers would be interested - I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition......

          9 0 Reply
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: 16 bits? Nicely done!

            NO-ONE EXPECTS the Spanish Inquisition

            7 0 Reply
    2. Neil Barnes Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      Re: 16 bits? Nicely done!

      Indeed. I built a couple of 8-bitters, but (a) I used gates in little boxes with legs on, instead of those tripod thingies, and (b) 16 bits looked like a step too far (though it *would* have simplified some things!)

      A pint, sir.

      14 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Do I need to change the motherboard if I want to upgrade? Not bad for a first effort but if someone does this with valves I'll be truly impressed!

    2 5 Reply
    1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Trollface

      "Not bad for a first effort " ?

      Troll alert!

      9 1 Reply
    2. Ken 16 Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Holmes

      Hydraulic valves, I trust?

      Not thermionic. The world needs a CPU that doesn't rely on this new fangled electricity.

      11 0 Reply
      1. Mike 125
        Reply Icon

        Re: Hydraulic valves, I trust?

        Babbage been there, done that, (in theory).

        https://plan28.org/

        2 0 Reply
        1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
          Reply Icon
          Thumb Up

          Re: Hydraulic valves, I trust?

          "Babbage been there, done that, (in theory)."

          And was the first to discover that, while drawing up the concept is relatively easy,

          actually building the thing's a lot harder than it looks

          4 0 Reply
      2. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Hydraulic valves, I trust?

        Not thermionic. The world needs a CPU that doesn't rely on this new fangled electricity.

        Real valves? Just ask Hubert.

        And Igor, of course

        3 0 Reply
      3. Tom 7
        Reply Icon

        Re: Hydraulic valves, I trust?

        Checkout the Z3 - relays. 1st turing complete machine.

        1 0 Reply
        1. energystar
          Reply Icon
          Terminator

          5-10 Hz relays

          You could hear that Z3 Thing palpitating.

          0 0 Reply
      4. herman
        Reply Icon

        Re: Hydraulic valves, I trust?

        Hydraulic computers were used in the explosives industry for process control till the 1980s at least.

        2 0 Reply
    3. TeeCee Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      ....if someone does this with valves I'll be truly impressed!

      Er, you have heard of Tommy Flowers and the Colossus?

      15 1 Reply
      1. smartypants
        Reply Icon

        Not the same thing

        Amazing though the colossus is (especially when you go and visit and see it working), it's not a CPU. It was hard-wired to do a specific job.

        What I love about computers - and especially the CPU bit - is that they aren't hard-wired to do a specific job. They'll do whatever you can think of. (Well, within reason!)

        4 0 Reply
        1. Mike 125
          Reply Icon

          Re: Not the same thing

          But Babbage dreamt of a mechanical same thing:

          Wiki:

          The Analytical Engine incorporated an arithmetic logic unit, control flow in the form of conditional branching and loops, and integrated memory, making it the first design for a general-purpose computer that could be described in modern terms as Turing-complete.[5][6] In other words, the logical structure of the Analytical Engine was essentially the same as that which has dominated computer design in the electronic era.[3]

          5 0 Reply
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Not the same thing

          "Amazing though the colossus is (especially when you go and visit and see it working), it's not a CPU."

          Though this is true, there were early valve Turing-complete computers. I've lost it now but I did once have a Mullard computer valve catalogue.

          However, the first working computer I ever encountered had germanium transistors.

          0 0 Reply
      2. energystar
        Reply Icon
        Paris Hilton

        Is there a movie about that?

        Would love to find that...

        0 0 Reply
  8. energystar
    Pint

    These are the things that separate Men from Mice.

    Congratulations, James.

    9 0 Reply
  9. Disk0
    Coat

    But

    will it run Crysis...

    And all I ever built is a lightswitch. Thanks for making us all feel like tinkering knobheads.

    9 0 Reply
    1. 9Rune5
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Re: But

      Do not fret Disk0 – it is not the size of your lightswitch that matters, but how you use it.

      Is that a wallet I see in your coat?

      0 0 Reply
  10. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    "If you want to build your own then the key thing is to sort out exactly what you want to achieve (and why) as early on as possible," he said.

    That's very good advice for any project and the key to successful project management.

    12 0 Reply
  11. martinusher Silver badge

    Bit Tedious

    Back when I was a graduate student in the mid-70s I landed a project that was to cobble together some bits of old processor -- a graphics processor, bits of CPU and some vintage core memory -- so that we could attach this graphics processor to a minicomputer (an Elliot 803). This technology was mainly RTL -- resistor/transistor logic, or the descrete stuff that is mentioned here (although the graphics processor itself had a rather neat diode array microprogram memory). What you end up with are racks containing numerous cards -- one card per register. It was a lot of wiring up. The sort of thing that would merit one or two lines of VHDL these days. The only 'visualization' came from connecting neon light drivers to each register bit -- this was common practice in computers of that era -- with a telephone key that controlled the clock (run/stop/step).

    Having done it once I don't think I'd bother to do it again. You end up with a lot of architectural compromises because of the electronics (like in this case you ran all memory accesses through the main processor's accumulator since you had to write the core after reading it, the accumulator doubling as the memory data holding register).

    3 1 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bit Tedious

      An Eliot 803! We learned Algol on one of those at Uni (Kent) around 1968 and then when I got a job I had to learn Fortran on an ICL 1903a.

      1 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bit Tedious

      "since you had to write the core after reading it, the accumulator doubling as the memory data holding register)."

      Ah, the days when you had instructions like dca (deposit and clear accumulator) because not having to rewrite the accumulator cores saved time! The "clear accumulator" was just the effect of a read without following write.

      0 0 Reply
  12. David Glasgow

    He should call it The Peach

    An altogether more satisfying Reg headline would then arise.

    0 0 Reply
  13. cantankerous swineherd
    Pint

    I managed a crystal radio once.

    respect.

    9 0 Reply
    1. 0laf
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      A crystal radio was the extent of my electronic construction also.

      I think this chap has earned a pint or two.

      2 0 Reply
  14. m0rt

    "Congratulations, James. May your work live on for years to come."

    Tell me that wasn't deliberate?

    Either way, cpu James is Legend.

    6 3 Reply
  15. AndrueC Silver badge
    Joke

    Will it run Windows 10?

    2 1 Reply
  16. ratfox
    Headmaster

    "an area of about 10m"

    (body)

    2 0 Reply
  17. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

    Exchange rate

    £40,000 (currently ~US$58,188)

    I think you'll be editing this article frequently throughout the course of the day

    41 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Exchange rate

      Why not just make it £1 ==== $1

      that seems to be where it is heading and many US companies use that already. Better buy that stuff now because soon it will be £1 === $0.50 in the corporate market.

      Gloting smile on my face as I have almost $2000 in crisp new $50's just waiting for the right moment to change them back. Looks like it won't be long now.

      As for the rest of the BREXIT, all I can say is that 'this ain't gonna end well'.

      PM Boris will soon be riding to the rescue (shudder)

      The statement welcoming this by Donald Trump should be enough to tell you that this is not going to end well.

      13 2 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Exchange rate

      £40,000 Currently $1.26

      3 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Exchange rate

        Could all be a bit academic really. Post-Brexit economy goes to s**t = no job = no wage. Zero pounds = $0 regardless of the exchange rate

        2 3 Reply
  18. Ivor
    Thumb Up

    Amazing.

    That's got to go into the science museum.

    6 0 Reply
  19. Blitheringeejit
    Pint

    I vote OUT for the Science Museum...

    ...and IN for the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park - surely?

    But pint either way, splendid work!

    20 0 Reply
  20. Adrian Midgley 1

    Well done

    that man. A British eccentric.

    6 0 Reply

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