@Tari
I made something that worked for me today. I took 4 pieces of wood, and cut a slot in each on, that the board can slide in and out of. Basically a simpler version of what you said.
@Kerm
I wouldn't technically be re-inventing the wheel, because, as of now, you have yet to port DCS to the 82. I was talking about for UltCalc. I'll surely use my 84 for programming as well. Didn't mean to freak you out or anything Kerm. I don't aspire to take your place or anything. Very Happy
Adept, no worries, I didn't feel threatened, just wanted to save you the trouble. Smile I suppose I could port DCS 5 to the TI-82, since it's available for TI-83, but I just don't think it's worth my time at this point.
Probably not, because the 82 is dead. But it's worth it to me, and I have time... Plus CrASH and all them don't have savvy GUIs like DCS does.
adept wrote:
Probably not, because the 82 is dead. But it's worth it to me, and I have time... Plus CrASH and all them don't have savvy GUIs like DCS does.
Doors CS 5.0 and earlier for the TI-83 supports SOS and Ash/Crash programs, so maybe it would actually be worth it for you to backport it.
The major drawback to backporting is the SUPER limited 82 memory. You couldn't fit much else besides the shell. Throw in drivers, and there is no room left for games. Sad BTW, the drivers you wrote for the ps2 mouse are really helpful. I started to backport them, but I started this project. It seems to be coded to work with Doors? The science fair is Saturday just so you know. Also, large group festival for band is on Friday. Whew.
Getting back on topic, what do you think of my progress on THIS project? I know you haven't said much about it since I was in the design phase, and I really do value your opinion.
Thanks, I appreciate you valuing my opinion. Smile I think you're doing a good job overall, although I feel that your unit testing is sadly lacking, and I will be very surprised if it works (no offense, just cold, unpleasant reality from my own DLD experience). I wish you the best of luck on Saturday, of course!
I won the science fair first place! Take that all you Los Alamos people! (All those rich people with scientist parents at Intel, AMD, Sandia Labs, Los Alamos Labs, or any other government/coorporation offspring who competed against me.) There was one judge who worked at the Intel plant just north of here, and he was very impressed. The safety judges deemed it unsafe to power up on account of the "loose wires". Sad A few judges thought I was a nut job and a liar. They didn't believe a sophomore in high school could design and build a computer. All kinds of computer science majors and engineers came and saw it. A lot of them were very impressed. A few were very skeptical. The judges wanted to see either the simulations I ran or the computer working. Both were unavailable to me, because I didn't prepare that. I don't understand how all the people around me can just say their results were accurate, but the stupid judges doubt me and insist I prove it! I got a special award from the Mu Alpha Theta organization. It's a national math association. What the hell did my project win that for? There was a whole category dedicated to math projects with people in it! I was really surprised they pulled a national award on me like that.
Concerning the creation of a simulation, everybody I talked with recommends I show one. My CPU I built woudn't even have to work if I had a solid simulation on my laptop demonstrating the designs usefulness. So I really want to create a simulation, and also find a way to keep the circuit from getting to freakin hot when its on. (The first time I powered it on, it quickly reached 30 degrees C above ambient, and I was forced to turn it off. (short possibly??) I should have put a cooling fan in the design as well. I have 1 month to change the project, without changing the topic. We'll see how all that goes!
Any advice on making my display more flashy? I had a light-up 113 LED display on the top. It sucked because I didn't have a battery holder, one LED was burned out, the thing wanted to fall off right away (I improvised and used one of the advertisement magazines and some duct/duck tape to hold it up!), my batteries died after the first half of the day, and all-in-all, they were really dim red LED lights in a well lit room. The board was TONS of text, my schematics professionally printed, 4 pictures of the inside, 1 flow chart, two graphs, and these light blue borders around everything. The girl next to me had this really cool electrical engineering board with lightning bolts, tons of pictures, and a binder full of extra info. The display really ashamed my attempt at one.
Also, any advice on making loose wires enclosed? I couldn't power it on because of that. These black wires ran from a seperate board over to the CPU in a really big ribbon cable. But, the safety inspector said that those wires were conductors that could potentially harm somebody. The rules say I must either ground them, or enclose them. I can't ground them, because they are signal wires, not power, so the only other option is enclosure.
The last thing that needs to be changed before state is I need to put up all of my conversations on this forum thread, because of credit purposes. So anybody that comments on this forum, I have to ask you guys if I can quote what you say, use what you've told me, and credit each one of you correctly. Anybody that disagrees with me using things they said will not be credited. If you guys have issues with this "credit" stuff, please talk with me before you get all angry.
On a completely unrelated side-note, there was this cute blond girl that stood next to me all day. When we broke for lunch, I ate with her and her friend. (She was in engineering, her friend in botany). It's all too bad that she lives 300 miles away! (and that I creamed her and she can't go to state with me.Sad)
Well, I certainly can't write a long enough post to do that justice, but great job on the fair! I definitely think a simulator is important, and there are tons of good logic simulators out there. I'm pretty sure that no one here would mind getting credited for their contributions, but you should ask each person individually if they happen to be on SAX. Regarding the wires, are they bare or insulated?
The wires are insulated; however, they are concerned with wires being pulled, boxes falling off tables, etc. They really are paranoid people.
If of course you were asking if they were shielded, (to stop coupling you know.) no, because I'm too poor and they are too bulky to work in this application. I'll definitely begin asking people on SAX.
adept wrote:
The wires are insulated; however, they are concerned with wires being pulled, boxes falling off tables, etc. They really are paranoid people.

I'm not sure if it would be enough to placate them, but I'd try to get a hold of some wire conduit or just corrugated tubing which you could put over the signal lines.

As I'm away from my desktop (on spring break) this week and thus won' t be lurking much, I'll throw in my consent to be quoted, etc here- feel free to use my comments.

As for making your display flashier, I think a working simulation would help you a lot with that, just so there' s something moving and demonstrating your design even if you can't run the physical machine. I've used Logisim and found it reasonably easy to use. Certainly as you're only modeling a couple hundred gates, it shouldn't be too difficult to create a digital model.

You might also want to talk a little bit about how your design compares to other architectures out there, and possibly even have physical comparisons (eg get an AVR chip for size comparison). You could, say, compare your design to the very earliest computers (MULTIVAC) and discuss how it all compares to modern designs (PIC, AVR, ARM, x86...).
Those are some great suggestions, Tari. I was going to suggest Logisim as well, since I've heard a lot of people recommend it here, but I'm ashamed to say that I still haven't gotten a chance to try it myself. Some mire conduit would be a great idea, but I'm unclear if it's power cabling that they're criticizing or your intra-PCB interconnects. If the latter, there's not much you can do about it.
Thanks for the software suggestion! I'm really liking the looks of it. I already had a few comparisons. However, anybody that knows what they're talking about can see there is something seriously wrong. My direct proportion should have made a straight line, but it didn't. SO, I will have to actually make a scaled up design to simulate. The Logism should help with that. I need help recording the simulations though. I need video screen capturing with narration, so I can demonstrate my circuit. I really LOVE how easy it is to use. Unlike Pspice where every part number and value count, this disregards that and just tests the logic! Thanks!
I can't use the corrugated tubing because the wires are soldered at both ends. I could cut the tubing possibly. That might actually solve that particular problem. I'm thinking about that. In the mean time, I have band tomorrow..., but Spring Break is next week! So I'll have an entire week to work on this stuff! Good night.

Edit:
I've been doing all these simulations is Logism, and there were NO problems!!! except... in the memory flip-flops it fusses about "oscillation". Is that a bad thing?! They are supposed to be toggle flip-flops. All I did was short the J and K on a JK flip flop, and got that error. Is it possible that I forgot a resistor somewhere? (pull-up / pull-down) It seemed to work just fine in the actual thing. I NEED this simulation to work so people can see all the internal stuff working.
I got 4th place in the science fair. No problem, right? Well, there IS a HUGE problem with that. Here I present my case.
All three of the competitors who placed above me came from Los Alamos High School. The student body looks like this:
Quote:
Student body




View of campus during lunchtime
Los Alamos High School is a suburban high-school serving the entire county of Los Alamos, including White Rock. The median household income in Los Alamos County is $88,870 and no economically disadvantaged students attend LAHS.[31] Elsewhere in New Mexico, LAHS is sometimes characterized as a school for the "rich".[37] Most of the students at LAHS originate from Los Alamos Middle School, the only middle school in Los Alamos County.
Ethnic composition[38]
White, not Hispanic: 77%
Hispanic: 17%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 4%
American Indian/Alaskan Native: less than 1%
Black, not Hispanic: less than 1%

Basically, poor in Los Alamos is making 80,000 a year!
So, lets look at the three projects.

First Place:
He built a portable water desalinator. It takes salt out of water to make it drinkable. Cool, right? Well, it was just a parabolic mirror aimed at a container that distilled the water. The problem is that it was OVER the size limit. It can only be 110" tall, and his was over 12 feet!! Also, he made several lies, saying that his apparatus could get rid of RADIATION IN WATER!!! What the heck! The water turns into tritium and other radioactive water isotopes that behave EXACTLY like water and cannot be filtered out! Also, he was placed directly by the entrance. He had prime real estate. His project also cost more than half a thousand dollars, and he couldn't answer ANY of my questions.

Second Place:
This project was a Peltier cooling device wired in reverse. He put it into a car radiator to charge the battery. Cool, right? Well not really. The apparatus he built cost him over 400 dollars and only can take the heat of the radiator and operate for 2000 hours. That only is at maximum 150,000 miles. The device generated enough power to save him 0.001 cents a mile. Basically the device saves you $1.50 in gas money over 150,000 miles. Not really practical.

Third Place:
This Los Alamos project "discovered" a new type of battery. So what was it? They took cream of tartar and made a paste, put it in between paper and aluminum foil, and rolled the thing up. What they "discovered" was actually invented like 200 years ago and its called a capacitor, not a battery!

My project:
I designed, simulated, calculated, and tested a prototype for a CPU! Also, after the first round of judging when exhibitors are not allowed in the room, I came back and found my table TRASHED!! Those dirty rotten judges destroyed my table! So this is how I found it: my mouse was laying upside-down on the table, my engineering journal had been rifled through and the papers were all over the floor, my light up title had fallen over and the battery pack fell off (damaging my wiring.), my schematics were torn, and the table was a general mess.
During the time I was allowed in there, I spent about ten minutes cleaning up the mess and doing damage control. (ONLY judges were allowed in the room at that time.) The judges proceeded to actually REFUSE to interview me. They constantly interrupted me and were a general pain to work with. Two of my judges introduced themselves as working for Sandia Labs. They probably stole ALL my research. I feel so violated and cheated.

My hypothesis as to what happened:
Los Alamos used there large amount of wealth and influence to get themselves the prime spots to set up, bribed the judges, and did other underhanded things. One proof of rule-breaking is: the rules say only 2 people per category can go on to state, Los Alamos declared a 2-way tie for first and 1 second and sent 3. In chemistry, they actually managed to send FIVE!

And please excuse my rant. I would have been more satisfied if there weren't so many convenient Los Alamos leanings, their projects had involved actual science, and my table hadn't been vandalized by a judge. Whatever, to get back, I'm selling my design to AMD! Razz (Question: is it fair game to double post after a month? or should I have editted the last post again?)
Double posting is fine, I know I hadn't thought about this thread recently.

On a more positive note (I'm not going to speculate on all your complaints, since I have no other sources), fourth place still seems pretty good-- how many total entrants were there?

I'd love to have a look at your documentation and such of the project as well. Any chance you could put a copy up somewhere online?
Sorry about the whole rant thing Tari. But there was 16 entries. The rules only allowed for 12, but Los Alamos High School had "ties" for first and second so got bonus entries.

I will try to put documentation up on Google Docs sometime tomorrow, hows that?
adept wrote:
Sorry about the whole rant thing Tari.
I don't mind you venting at all, and it makes for some interesting information to stockpile- I just don't feel I have enough information about the situation to make any sort of fair and accurate conclusion. Smile

Anyhow, I think fourth out of 16 is quite respectable. Just imagine how humiliating it would have been to get dead last, eh? If nothing else, this was a project you can be proud of, and damn whatever the judges thought.

Having the docs up sometime tomorrow sounds great.
Definitely congrats on 4th place! Personally, I've had enough people bash and trash my work over the years to be happy to accept whatever positive recognition I do get and know that I'm proud of myself for the work I did for the remainder. What did you mean about selling your design to AMD?
When I said sell it to AMD, I meant that if it was as good as I rode around saying it was, I could sell it to AMD. That would smite Intel because I entered into the Intel Science and Engineering Fair, their judges made me lose, so I sold the Intel destroying design to AMD.

Edit:
Put my board and the table info onto Google Docs. Unfortunately, Google Docs doesn't do Schematics. Sad But I'll try to find a way to get those up. And I didn't put up information that wasn't up on my board.
This is my first report covers contents. (If this is the wrong version without the glossary, sorry.)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1abqGra0HFFhJ5SwHVgOHb32P_9Je-zb8_5Rc2rUCZ58/edit?hl=en#
This is my boards information, no frillies.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vtBFs5G9h4gwVHM6KgQ8cVnX5uS27NSub3meAF7C0-M/edit?hl=en#
I'll try to get up the other report cover with the schematics inside. Might have to scan all those...
Schematics can be images; you can certainly put images in Google Docs, I think. Smile I don't know how to say this nicely, but I somehow don't think that you're a better CPU designer than Intel or AMD's engineers. Wink I appreciate the sentiment, though.
There was an error with my privacy settings Tari. Just fixed them. Now anyone can view them.

@Kerm, maybe that's why I only got fourth...
  
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