I’m building that one now. I did the 6502 project first which was a long weekend project. That also gets you familiar with making ROMs without needing to build the programmer yourself. (Then again building the programmer is also educational, and you could use that skill to program the ROM for the 6502 without buying the programmer and using their suspicious looking but totally fine software that goes with it.)
I’m on the output module of the 8-bit computer, adding a register so you can store the number being output. Next is adding the bus to connect all the modules. (I end up listening to something else while making a bunch of wires, and that will take a lot of wires. I’m trying to make it look nice like Ben does.)
It got me to set up a dedicated electronics workstation and I went ahead and got myself a soldering station (more for future projects but it was useful for making a USB power cable and adding resistors to LEDs to save space) and oscilloscope (useful for seeing the glitches I’m currently having; plus it’s fun).
I’m getting into PCB design (KiCad). Started designing one for the 6502 project but I’m pausing that while I work on the 8 bit cpu project. There are definitely issues with the 8 bit project being on breadboards and/or how it’s currently hooked up such as the fact that some parts have some glitches due to poor power distribution and floating input pins that I’ll be working on. There are some good tips on /r/beneater subreddit.
I also just picked up the book he based the lectures on, to round things out. Of course, learning from Ben Eater and doing it in real life is the point where theory meets practice and you start making things in the real world.
https://www.youtube.com/@weirdboyjim James Sharman is probably worth a look for taking a home brew CPU to the next level, like his pipelined CPU which is also moved to PCBs. He also works on other things such as audio, video, etc.
There are also a ton of other system builders on YouTube making home brew Z80 and other CPU projects. Ben talks about SPI interface but I also found out how to use SPI to read/write from SD cards (John’s Basement: https://youtube.com/@JohnsBasement )
This channel is adding a cassette interface to Ben Eater’s 6502 project. I want to do that and is what actually made me decide to get an oscilloscope. https://youtube.com/@GregStrike
I’m on the output module of the 8-bit computer, adding a register so you can store the number being output. Next is adding the bus to connect all the modules. (I end up listening to something else while making a bunch of wires, and that will take a lot of wires. I’m trying to make it look nice like Ben does.)
It got me to set up a dedicated electronics workstation and I went ahead and got myself a soldering station (more for future projects but it was useful for making a USB power cable and adding resistors to LEDs to save space) and oscilloscope (useful for seeing the glitches I’m currently having; plus it’s fun).
I’m getting into PCB design (KiCad). Started designing one for the 6502 project but I’m pausing that while I work on the 8 bit cpu project. There are definitely issues with the 8 bit project being on breadboards and/or how it’s currently hooked up such as the fact that some parts have some glitches due to poor power distribution and floating input pins that I’ll be working on. There are some good tips on /r/beneater subreddit.
I also just picked up the book he based the lectures on, to round things out. Of course, learning from Ben Eater and doing it in real life is the point where theory meets practice and you start making things in the real world.
https://www.youtube.com/@weirdboyjim James Sharman is probably worth a look for taking a home brew CPU to the next level, like his pipelined CPU which is also moved to PCBs. He also works on other things such as audio, video, etc.
There are also a ton of other system builders on YouTube making home brew Z80 and other CPU projects. Ben talks about SPI interface but I also found out how to use SPI to read/write from SD cards (John’s Basement: https://youtube.com/@JohnsBasement )
This channel is adding a cassette interface to Ben Eater’s 6502 project. I want to do that and is what actually made me decide to get an oscilloscope. https://youtube.com/@GregStrike