Hey, it's been a while since I've been active here, which is really something I should do something about. So how about posting this project I've been working on lately here? Sounds like a plan!

Recently I got a bunch of wires, breadboards and logic ICs (4070 (xor), 4071 (or), 4081 (and) and 4539 (4-input mux) to be precise), with which I'm planning on making a (probably) 8-bit computer. Currently, I'm working on figuring out how to most efficiently make it - breadboards are really quick but a cluster**** of wires, perfboards are pretty neat but cost lots of time to make, and I suck at designing PCBs and they are a hassle to make.

I already have a working 2-bit ALU (arithmetic logic unit, the calculaty part of a processor) on a breadboard, which can be expanded easily, and I'm working on making the same 2-bit ALU on a perfboard, to see how that turns out. I should be able to connect those two versions together to get a messy 4-bit ALU, I suppose. I'll see!

The ALU I'm working with currently has the ability to invert either of the inputs, a carry in/out and three functions (AND, OR and ADD) which can be combined to do lots of stuff. For example, to subtract, carry in has to be enabled and input B has to be inverted.

Anyway, I currently don't have any nice non-shaky pictures or videos to show, I'll take a few of those with some precious daylight tomorrow.

This post has originally been posted by SirCmpwn on TI-Planet and has been crossposted with his permission.

Hello again! We haven't posted any updates since November so there is a lot of news for you:

• New contributors! We now extend thanks to kedarbramhe, Hugo "s0r00t" Courtial, Francis Lewis, Noah "Ivoah" Rosamilia, Kevin Lange, altbdoor, Justin "Jnesselr" Nesselrotte, Bjorn Neergaard, Willem "willem3141" Sonke, and Andrew Boos!
  
• New games have been ported: ports/ztetris (thanks unlimitedbacon!) and ports/rubik (thanks Ivoah!)
  
• New software from boos1993: community/progcalc is a programming calculator app that lets you do integer math on KnightOS (thanks boos1993!)
  
• community/calendar has been added to the default distribution (thanks willem3141!)
  
• We have redesigned knightos.org to be prettier and such (thanks altbdoor!)
  
• There is a KnightOS wiki now (thanks boos1993!)
  
• Users can upgrade their OS through the settings tool without pulling a battery (thanks, SirCmpwn!)
  
• Lots of improvements have been made to PKO (packages.knightos.org) (thanks boos1993!)
  
• Date/time support in the kernel is nearing completion, settings has been updated to support it as well (thanks willem3141!)
  
• We've started working on calcsys (thanks, SirCmpwn!)
  
• Our new assembler/linker, scas, is nearing completion. It will be released as independent software when it matures. (thanks, lots of people!)
  
• The castle is maturing, and now lists app manifests from /var/applications/ so you can run any installed app. We've also made /var/castle/pin-{0-9} symbolic links to app manifests, which defines the apps pinned to the home screen. (thanks, SirCmpwn!)
  
• We have partially implemented the KIMG format and produced a tool to convert most image formats into KIMG files. (thanks, neersighted!)
  
• We have started work on a text editor called "bed" - Basic EDitor. (thanks, lots of people!)

Pretty pictures:

Quote from: SirCmpwn
This time around, I'm pretty sure most of the work was NOT done by me, which is a first Thanks everyone!

What about this thing?
Speak in haikus, everyone!
It's gonna be fun!

This is how it works:
Five, seven, five syllables.
It's easy to be done!

This is something I've actually been curious about: How many people here play instruments, and if they do, which?

I myself have been playing guitar for a year or three, after playing the piano for like 7 years off and on from when I was a kid.

I'd love to pick up piano playing again, but I don't like having to play downstairs, maybe annoying the neighbours and having to annoy the rest of the family with my playing, and good keyboards are so incredibly expensive (so are guitars, btw, but I lucked out and managed to get a Jackson Kelly KE-3 (about €700 new) for €180 second-hand ).

And how about you?