Home-Brew 8 Bit CPU...

This is cool, but those of us of a certain age have been there, done that, before.  For that young feller, building a computer from scratch with a microprocesser is an exotic affair.  For me (and many others) in the late '70s and early '80s, it was the norm.  I've designed and built dozens of these – and that's not bragging, that's just the way you did things back then. 

There's a further step I'd love to take.  It's been on my “to do” list ever since Don Tarbell showed me his home-brew 8 bit computer back in the late '70s.  He didn't start with a microprocessor chip – he started with a blank sheet of paper and a TTL parts catalog.  He designed the instruction set, the CPU architecture, and every logic gate in the entire thing.  The result was something that would (barely) fit on a table-top, and operated at a speed that would be most unimpressive today – but it was all his design, from the instruction set on up.

I want to do that.  And someday, I will.