Agreed. While he didn't START my journey to build my own 7400-series-based CPU, he certainly was a huge influence and even contributed some wisdom directly. We need more great people like Bill.
Echoing others' comments: any content on Magic-1 is good content! I remember when I first saw Magic-1 and couldn't believe that one person could create this entire machine from the ground up, ISA and all. I love that the machine is still working and seeing you participate in the Hellorld fun was a welcome surprise! And of course I'd love to hear about any other fun projects you're working on as well. I know there's not likely to be a successor to Magic-1, but I imagine you've still got some interesting things on your workbench or in a notebook somewhere that you might be willing to share. Thanks for making Magic-1 so accessible (both understandable and reachable online). I'd love to watch anything else you feel like sharing.
I remember the first time I saw a video of Magic-1, I was astonished. I was still in elementary school but I was that kid who would read a circuitry book between classes. Here we are at least 10 - 15 years later and I'm working on computer designs and making working programming languages. The computer I'm designing is very much inspired by the Altair 8800 but it definitely has a hint of Magic.
Came across the Magic-1 many years ago while browsing the Homebrew CPU Webring and it blew me away - incredibly impressive work and definitely an inspiration, as several others here have mentioned. Would absolutely love to have a video (or two, or ten...) with your bugfix tales! Thanks for posting this video as well, glad to see the Magic-1 is still going strong!
How cool! I like seeing the various "Hellorld!" videos that people have been making (even if I'm a couple months behind on some, hehe). I'd be interested to see videos on various issues you've had with Magic-1 and how you solved them. 🙂
Bill, I would be interested in just about anything related to getting Magic 1 up and running. Nothing is too deep. I hope that you find the time for some of that. Thanks for the videos and your willingness to talk about Magic-1.
Good one Bill, I thought before that it would be rather nice to see how Magic1 was brought up and debugged, I for one will certainly love to watch a vid or sequence of vids relating to this... Thanks
Watching you toggle in your program on the front panel, I have to ask if it (front panel) has a deposit next toggle on it. That seemed well used by me when I did things on machines with a front panel (40 odd years ago). I'd like to hear about tracking down machine bugs too.
Good question - and no, it doesn't. When I designed the front panel, my focus was on observing machine state rather than modifying it so I didn't include that feature. The other, and perhaps even more significant omission is that I didn't include any mechanism for changing register state via the front panel. If I were to do it again, I'd include those two things.
Why is your labels on the address bus and data bus showing the MSB on the right and the LSB on the left but when toggle in the address values and data values the LSB in on the right and MSB on the left? Just looks odd but you must have a reason that I am missing. Glad you enjoy the Centurion project. I worked at Warrex / Centurion for 10+ years and have been working on the restore project with David.
Ah - good eyes. In fact, the least significant bit *is* on the right of the front panel. However, Magic-1 is a big-endian machine - both for byte and bit ordering. A21 is the LSB, and A0 is the MSB. I got used to big-endian numbering conventions when I worked at HP doing compiler work for PA-RISC systems. By the time I designed Magic-1, the world had pretty much fallen victim to the little-endian heresy but because this was my design I was free to use the proper, correct and righteous big-endian bit and byte numbering. 🙂 For more insight on this issue, Google "Danny Cohen on Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace".
I have a design for an architecture 'in mind', 'and hours of audio recordings', that very litteraly has limitless simultaneous parallelism, would you be up to helping me get whats in my mind and audio recordings into reality? It does have a bit in common with an FPGA, But it doesn't even compare, extreamly different. Its not Von Neumann or Harvard Architecture. And it can use a clock but does not need one exactly... except for processes a human would directly interact with like audio/video or your moving the mouse around to play a game etc. It is more like a Digital WetWare Computer aka brain
Yes pls Bill. Would love a bug video @beefchicken I’m one of the ones inspired by Bill, I’m also one of the one of the names on the back of the system :) Bill has inspired me to build a z80 and currently building my own cpu
I don’t know if you realize how many people you’ve inspired with Magic-1!
I would love to see any video on Magic-1.
Agreed. While he didn't START my journey to build my own 7400-series-based CPU, he certainly was a huge influence and even contributed some wisdom directly. We need more great people like Bill.
That's great to see some new content with the Magic-1! Thanks!
I would love to see videos about your debugging war stories!
Would love to see a video on bughunting. Also, would love to see a video on how Minix was adapted to run under Magic-1.
Echoing others' comments: any content on Magic-1 is good content! I remember when I first saw Magic-1 and couldn't believe that one person could create this entire machine from the ground up, ISA and all. I love that the machine is still working and seeing you participate in the Hellorld fun was a welcome surprise! And of course I'd love to hear about any other fun projects you're working on as well. I know there's not likely to be a successor to Magic-1, but I imagine you've still got some interesting things on your workbench or in a notebook somewhere that you might be willing to share. Thanks for making Magic-1 so accessible (both understandable and reachable online). I'd love to watch anything else you feel like sharing.
I remember the first time I saw a video of Magic-1, I was astonished. I was still in elementary school but I was that kid who would read a circuitry book between classes. Here we are at least 10 - 15 years later and I'm working on computer designs and making working programming languages. The computer I'm designing is very much inspired by the Altair 8800 but it definitely has a hint of Magic.
Came across the Magic-1 many years ago while browsing the Homebrew CPU Webring and it blew me away - incredibly impressive work and definitely an inspiration, as several others here have mentioned. Would absolutely love to have a video (or two, or ten...) with your bugfix tales! Thanks for posting this video as well, glad to see the Magic-1 is still going strong!
Any new Magic1 video is a great blessing, and i for one would love more
+1 for the bug fixing video. What an interesting machine! Makes you wonder what would've happened if it was sold in the 70's
Man, it's so cool to see this thing again.
Magic-1 was my homepage during it's development. I'm still waiting for Magic-16! 🙂
That's some mighty impressive CPU! Such a beautiful build, in and out.
been following this project for a long time, great to see it still going strong!
Wow I watched your other videos (again) just a couple of days ago! And now you are back from the shadows with the wonderful Hellorld meme :D
How cool! I like seeing the various "Hellorld!" videos that people have been making (even if I'm a couple months behind on some, hehe).
I'd be interested to see videos on various issues you've had with Magic-1 and how you solved them. 🙂
Would love to see the bug fix video, good to see you back Bill.
What a surprise! I just logged into this computer 5 days ago. Thank you for the video! It would be nice to see more about Magic-1.
Thank you so much for a new video. It has been a long time since I have been this excited to watch something!
Hi Bill. Ive followed your amazing project on your website and CPU web ring from the very start.
Bill, I would be interested in just about anything related to getting Magic 1 up and running. Nothing is too deep. I hope that you find the time for some of that. Thanks for the videos and your willingness to talk about Magic-1.
Good one Bill, I thought before that it would be rather nice to see how Magic1 was brought up and debugged, I for one will certainly love to watch a vid or sequence of vids relating to this... Thanks
Watching you toggle in your program on the front panel, I have to ask if it (front panel) has a deposit next toggle on it. That seemed well used by me when I did things on machines with a front panel (40 odd years ago). I'd like to hear about tracking down machine bugs too.
Good question - and no, it doesn't. When I designed the front panel, my focus was on observing machine state rather than modifying it so I didn't include that feature. The other, and perhaps even more significant omission is that I didn't include any mechanism for changing register state via the front panel. If I were to do it again, I'd include those two things.
I would love to see a video about the bugs as you asked about!
wow what an upload!!!!!
Awesome!
Hahahah I love seeing this spread!
Why is your labels on the address bus and data bus showing the MSB on the right and the LSB on the left but when toggle in the address values and data values the LSB in on the right and MSB on the left? Just looks odd but you must have a reason that I am missing. Glad you enjoy the Centurion project. I worked at Warrex / Centurion for 10+ years and have been working on the restore project with David.
Ah - good eyes. In fact, the least significant bit *is* on the right of the front panel. However, Magic-1 is a big-endian machine - both for byte and bit ordering. A21 is the LSB, and A0 is the MSB. I got used to big-endian numbering conventions when I worked at HP doing compiler work for PA-RISC systems. By the time I designed Magic-1, the world had pretty much fallen victim to the little-endian heresy but because this was my design I was free to use the proper, correct and righteous big-endian bit and byte numbering. 🙂 For more insight on this issue, Google "Danny Cohen on Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace".
I have a design for an architecture 'in mind', 'and hours of audio recordings', that very litteraly has limitless simultaneous parallelism, would you be up to helping me get whats in my mind and audio recordings into reality? It does have a bit in common with an FPGA, But it doesn't even compare, extreamly different. Its not Von Neumann or Harvard Architecture. And it can use a clock but does not need one exactly... except for processes a human would directly interact with like audio/video or your moving the mouse around to play a game etc. It is more like a Digital WetWare Computer aka brain
Yes pls Bill. Would love a bug video
@beefchicken I’m one of the ones inspired by Bill, I’m also one of the one of the names on the back of the system :)
Bill has inspired me to build a z80 and currently building my own cpu