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Blind and Visually Impaired Community

Full History - 2019 - 11 - 05 - ID#drwbz0
8
Making an 8bit computer (self.Blind)
submitted by CloudsOfMagellan
I'm totally blind and have been looking into 8bit computers lately
Is there any way for me to do this myself?
Duriello 2 points 3y ago
If you mean building an actual 8-bit CPU you will need to buy an FPGA and read about VHDL or Verilog (the hardware development languages), and familiarize yourself with all the binary operations such as AND, OR, XOR, NAND, NOR, NXOR, latches, flip-flops, and integer operations before even attempting to build the CPU. Getting output from the FPGA may be another problem since the output comes as an electrical signal that you can only read using either LEDs or an oscilloscope. There might be FPGAs with more advanced output ports such as RS232 that you can connect to a computer via a USB adapter, but you will still need to implement circuitry to interface with those ports.
CloudsOfMagellan [OP] 1 points 3y ago
I was thinking about building a custom braille display or using speakers / buzzers of some sort for output
Whereami259 2 points 3y ago
I guess you could (but I'm a sighted person and cant tell from experience). Laying down components would be relatively easy, wiring them together would be awfully hard from what I can guess.
Have you tried working with Arduino? Maybe try that at first, you can achieve a lot with a few wires.
CloudsOfMagellan [OP] 2 points 3y ago
I was thinking about  distinguishing between components and knowing which pins were inputs and outputs
Whereami259 2 points 3y ago
You could count them. The easiest way on arduino is to find USB connector (biggest metal square on one edge of the board), and if you follow pins from that edge to the oposite edge and start from here you get pins in order from 0 to 13).
On custom 8bit you'd have to find a notch on top of each component and then count pins from that. Also you'd have to know which component is which, and I guess you could do that by size, but I havent tried making my own 8bit and cant tell you more sadly.

If you decide to go with arduino, feel free to PM me, maybe we can arrange something so I can help you with that.
CloudsOfMagellan [OP] 2 points 3y ago
Thank you
fbracing02 3 points 3y ago
Same here, I love this stuff and always looking for a new thing to play with. I have low vision but between the two of use we could figure it out.
codeplaysleep 1 points 3y ago
Oh man... it depends on how in-depth you want to go with it. If you're going to use existing components and don't want to build the microprocessor itself or hand-wire anything, you might be able to get a kit and modify the PCB with holtite sockets, eliminating the need to solder components.

Modifying the PCB would be tedious, but I feel like it could be done without vision, if you had a sighted friend who could look over it and make sure you hadn't missed anything along the way. It would just take a long time.

Here's a kit that might work: $1

You can get the holtites from $1

There's no way to order directly from CPUville - you have to email the guy about the kit. Maybe you could talk to him and see if he thinks the holtites would work. You could also ask if he would install them for you, since he offers other assembly services, if you wanted.
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