Building a Computer on Breadboards (Ben Eater Project — Log 1)
I’m building a computer. Not assembling one with a screwdriver — building one from logic chips and wire, on breadboards, following Ben Eater’s legendary project series. First up: the clock module. Here’s log one, backwards chip and all.
Why I Love Computers That Are Worse in Every Way
My daily driver has 32GB of RAM and a processor that can run a billion operations per second. My favorite computer to tinker with has 64KB of RAM and runs BASIC. It’s worse in every measurable way, and I love it.
Here’s why: when you have 64KB, every byte matters. There are no layers of abstraction hiding what’s actually happening. No operating system doing a hundred things in the background. No framework of a framework of a framework. It’s just you, the hardware, and whatever you can fit in memory. You type something, and the machine does it. You can understand the entire thing, top to bottom. When’s the last time you could say that about any modern computer?