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Podcast: Chaos Computer Club - recent audio-only feed
Episode: When 8 Bits is Overkill: Making Blinkenlights with a 1-bit CPU (39c3)
Description: Over the last half year I have explored the Motorola mc14500 - a CPU with a true one-bit architecture - and made it simulate Conway's Game of Life. This talk gives a look into how implementing a design for such a simplistic CPU can work, and how it's possible to address 256 LEDs and half a kiloword of memory with just four bits of address space.
In the late seventies, Motorola created a very cheap CPU, intended to replace logic circuits made from electromechanical relays. The resulting IC is so minimalistic that it can hardly be recognized as a CPU: Its...