Relay Computer - New Register and Backplane
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ค. 2024
- Although my first register worked as designed, I soon got the feeling that it wasn't going to work out - coding and cabling would have been horrendous! Fortunately, this led me to do some more research and finding a much better solution for both the registers and how it will all tie together.
Ping me on Discord: discordapp.com/users/39099887...
Music:
Space Jazz - Libre de Droits
Kamogawa Dreaming - South London HiFi
One Last Time - South London HiFi
It Was a Fine Day - South London HiFi
Thank you for watching, and as always I welcome any feedback or ideas for future projects!
Chapters:
0:00 Intro and Acknowledgments
0:42 Architecture (Focus on Registers)
1:40 Register Woes
2:04 Flaw 1 - Reset Line = Coding Nightmare
3:39 Flaw 1 Solution: Dr. Porter to the rescue
6:04 Flaw 2 - Avoiding the Rats Nest
6:55 Flaw 2 Solution: Backplane to the rescue
8:11 Card Edge Design - Interpreting the Data Sheet
9:42 Card Edge Design - Footprints in the PCB
11:14 Interlude - My cameras don't record soldering well...
11:38 The new Backplane and Registers!
13:52 First Test - Manual "button-mashing" method
14:46 Automated Test Rig Setup Walkthrough
15:48 Second Test - Automated - Loading values from data bus
16:00 Third Test - Automated - Passing values between registers via the data bus
16:20 High-speed Test - Automated - 0 to 60 in 10.4 days
16:41 Outro - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I think you meant OR when you said AND:
01 OR 10 is 11, while 01 AND 10 is 00.
But I’m sure anyone who is interested in this video already knows that :)
Thanks for posting, very interesting and very well done!
Thanks - Yes indeed I did - I'll chalk it up to nerves -- somehow once I get it into truth-table and schematic format it seems to work out 😀
YT just suggested me your channel, and I subscribed immediately!. I am making a relay computer myself too, so I hope I can learn from your build too. Been following Harry Porter and Paul Law since long ago too. Regarding storage of bits using relays there's another way that I regard as a better and more elegant approach. It takes advantage of the relay own induction current to enable direct storage of bits (either zero or one) without having to explicitly reset any relay. It actually works like a conventional transparent D-Latch, with only an Enable and Data inputs and a Q output, and can be implemented with just 2 relays per bit. In case you may want to check, it's described in Chapter 6 of my channel. It's a very small channel and not in English but I manually add English subtitles. This particular video also references Harry Porter work and shows the differences between both approaches. In any case, congrats for your work, I really enjoyed watching your videos
Your videos are amazingly well done! As soon as I saw your induction current design I immediately run downstairs to try it - and you're right! My first go at it I didn't install the flyback diodes so it didn't work...but once they were installed it worked perfectly! Brilliant! I had tried so many variations with two relays but kept getting the oscillation effect. Amazing work, I'll be following your channel!
@@dipdoting Oh, thanks for that. The videos are mostly just Keynote presentations (same as Paul Law's). It's tedious, but I am unable to feel relaxed in front of my phone camera or even just recording audio, so I suppose the presentations are my own way to overcome this issue. I really enjoy your relaxed and effortless explanations. Along with your content that's definitely a very favourable aspect that make watching your videos a pleasure. Anyway, I'm glad "my design" worked fine for you, as I said elsewhere I was not sure that this could even work before I tried
@@dipdoting I also just found your channel. Here we have my 2 favorite relay computer builds!
Nice! An automated test rig is always a good thing... this is someone who does entirely manual testing (thankfully of much simpler circuits) speaking. :)
I'm find the Arduino (and Elegoo knock-off) a life-saver for this sort of thing. Look a little getting used to programming it, but now I'm hooked and use it for pretty much everything.
The bad thing about this video is that it isn't a year old with 10 more to watch! Subscribed.
Thank you! Gotta keep everyone in suspense! 😉
@@dipdoting Keep it up man. Your videos are great.
This will be a nice series! Thanks for sharing your adventure.
Really cool! Thank you. I can see the tremendous work behind. 😮
That is a work of art my friend and it sounded glorious
Looking forward to see the complete series 👍
Dude,
Sub
Awesome project.
Great pacing, easy to digest.
I'm not smart enough to design those kind of boards so its great to be able to se your work.
Praise the electrolords for great gift of interweb
Thank you!
this is one of the few times youtube has given me a good recommendation and i will be excitedly waiting for your next videos
having watched so much of Ben eater and James Sharman that work with logic chips it took me a while to realize that you cant just throw some extra logic onto the registers to fix the clearing issue
Thanks! Ben Eater is amazing and I learned a lot about the next card (sequencer) from watching his breadboard computer videos!
Nice job!! I will be watching and learning. I want to build myself one day!
Hi, I'm new to this kind of stuff, and found this video really interesting. I've subscribed so I can watch this computer's final form take shape and maybe learn a couple things or two.
Heres to good knowledge. 🤝
Great work! love the card selector pins/wires, nice idea!
Thanks Paula! I checked out your page as well, like that PJ5! Hope to see more about!
@@dipdotingThanks, I'm just finishing off a DCJ11 based system, but I really fancy building a relay computer so I'll be following your work closely.
13 hz... damn
Yeah, but it's only a theoretical exercise. And at 13hz, you can barely even see what's going on with everything, so that might be too fast. In terms of a hobby project that you can literally watch, that 7hz was actually pretty reasonable. Maybe 10hz might be a good compromise.
Fantastic! What an interesting project!
Makes a nice beat! Great work
That's pretty bad ass! Thanks for sharing!
It looks amazing
Beautiful!
Thank you, Dr. Porter! Your design is foundational and inspirational!
Very cool!
It will be interesting to see how you develop this computer... I always think it would be neat to build one of these, but then I have so many other hobbies and stuff. When I was in college I built a 4-bit discrete Logic computer, 7400 series, so I can check that off my list. I don't have that computer anymore because it was 100% breadboards that suffered from intermittent wiring woes But I built it and it mostly worked. I used the 74181 ALU and a ton of latches. I learned that in the microprogramming the sequencer needed to latch outputs to make things stable... with relays I can imagine some race conditions that you'll need to deal with as you progress forward. Good Luck and BTW, I'm your newest subscriber... Cheers!
re: Race Conditions...this could be a challenge for sure - I'm thinking that I'll need some bus signals to manage this - sort of a 'READY" or "NOT READY" state sort of thing. That will be a fun bridge to cross!
@@dipdoting , Well a bit of a brainstorming idea here: How about for 2 states you have a 3-relay sequencer could have a middle relay that is triggered from the first to allow for the first state to clear before engaging and signaling the next state... But I just realized that if you have a chain of relays that each adds a signaling delay, as long as the relays can clear or set their state... Hmmm... not sure really, RC delays could bottleneck your system and as you build up the system maybe not as reliable and switched logic. I watched that Alex on Connections do a teardown of a pinball machine, all mechanical devices, perhaps some inspiration from that?
imagine playing Dota 2 on relay computers the clicking sound would be epic 😆
I followed Harry Porter's project back in the day, but the sheer physical was too daunting for me to even contemplate. I'll look forward to your build. Hopefully you'll release design docs at some point (perhaps even gerbers and BOM, hint hint)
Definitely intend to put the designs out there once I get a bit farther down the road just to ensure I don't need any "revisions" prior to doing so :)
Fantastic work.
What was the average current draw on the logic boards so far?
The registers (fully loaded with data - all LEDs on) come in at around .96 amps. I've ended-up using relays that are .04A (.2W) each - I may have to switch to less hungry relays but they are a challenge to find (and more $ for some reason).
Very interesting video. The flyback diodes do not appear to be installed across the relay coils yet.
It may also be helpful to add some bulk capacitors on each of the relay boards across the power supply.
In the current configuration, the power bus likely has a huge amount of noise on it.
Agree re: flyback diodes - I was too excited to get it running - didn't seem to affect it yet but when more boards are on the bus they will definitely be needed. I put a capacitor on backplane power --- works okay for two boards but we'll see what happens when the backplane is full 🤔😬
This is impressive. Do you have any schematics posted? I would like to read them to understand it more fully.
I'm currently searching out a blog space for this purpose - fully intend to start putting out some of the schematics and pcb designs.
Great work, I love relay computers! Do you have a link to the relays you're using?
The relay is an HK19F-DC5V-SHG, you can purchase smaller quantities from Amazon, but if you're ordering many then go with someplace like lcsc.com - The LCSC part # is: C54512
This is an interesting project to follow.
Sadly it did not get clear to me how the registers worked exactly. Maybe in the next Vid you could be go deeper into the schematic part of your project. I also did not got the need of the different registers so i got others where a blur to me, like the XY, J and M register.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll share out the schematics in future episodes. Another great resource is Dr. Porter's detailed video on the build of his computer: th-cam.com/video/9WdclMAs55w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Yq7FglDWsCUaWBrY
Superb video, btw You ment OR and not AND when you showed the reset issue
Thank you for the positive feedback AND I truly appreciate you catching logical blunder (See what I did there?) ... 😁I've added a correction on the video.
@@dipdoting love the sound of the relays, reminds of the opening scene in Aliens, keep up the good work.
Years ago, when I was young , I made a 8 bit adder with type 3000 relays. It worked but you needed a fork lift to move it. What you are doing fascinates me. Do you have shares in the relay company? One last question, are you going to make a digital wrist watch? 🤣 Keep well m8. 👍 🇦🇺 I'm now subed.
Wow! Type 3000 are huge! I'd love to get one just for nostalgia! That must've been impressive when it was operating, sparks and all! Yeah I'm going for the volume discounts on relays :)
@@dipdoting They were the only type I could get for free. Sparks were a no-no. I actually learnt how to adjust them correctly. Later in life I got a job doing that and I never want to see one again. B well m8. 😃🇦🇺
Ben Eater on hard mode
Insta-subscribe. I can't wait for the follow-ups.
Thank you!