Props to youtube's algorithm for putting the first video into my recommendations when it was just a couple of days old - been enjoying these videos immensely! Thank you and keep up the awesome work!
The types of people that would enjoy this kind of intellectual content typically will be well behaved in the comment section. We're literally not dumb enough for the crude jokes, insults, and other idiocy that you might find in the comments on purely entertainment videos.
This is inspiring stuff, it makes me want to have a go at building a 486 based machine myself. I'm too stuck in Motorola 68k land at the moment though. 😅 Regarding the buffers, my interpretation of the datasheet is that you will require all 4 of them. To quote the datasheet: "The external system must contain buffers to enable the Intel486 Microprocessor to read and write data on the appropriate data bus pins. Table 7.4 shows the data bus lines where the Intel486 Microprocessor expects data to be returned for each valid combination of byte enables and bus sizing options. Valid data will only be driven onto data bus pins corresponding to active byte enables during write cycles. ***Other pins in the data bus will be driven but they will not contain valid data.***" I've emphasised the last sentence there. So it's possible that D7..0 will be driven during a write to another byte, and that will clash with whatever one of the other buffers drives onto the 8 bit bus. Chuck that 4th buffer in. 😄
Thanks for calling that out, I'm pretty sure you (and a few others telling me to do this) are right after all. So I'll probably add the 4th buffer at the start of the next video. :)
I got a push notification for this video the moment it was uploaded. I just thought I would let you know. For some reason youtube seems *REALLY* keen on me watching it, as it's been top of my recommendations since you put it up.
Fantastic video. I never imagined it was possible to breadboard such an advanced x86 processor, let alone with such little hardware. I’m exited to see more of your videos! Thank you.
Loving this series! You have a great voice for this, very easy to listen to I've been doing software for 15 or so years and I'm just starting getting into hardware and electronics. I hope to create my own breadboard computer , hopefully with some exotic architecture in the future
Very interesting project. I would build at least a serial port for console output before attempting protected mode though. I don't imagine trying to debug triple-faults just by staring at blinking LEDs would be too much fun.
Well, I'm not planning to do much more then set up flat memory with protected mode, at least at first, so there shouldn't be to much of a chance of that happening. Still, I don't plan to do more then that until I get a uart wired up and my forth kernal up and running.
Looks well on its way to the basics, once there is ISA or how ever you plan you will have bread boarded the basis for a dos machine funny enough the 486 to my recall could run doom so that'll be neat when it's up to that point maybe some of the more mucky stuff like sound could be done via a pico pi unless you are going all in there also. Nice job so far really looking forward to more.
I'm not planning to copy the ISA bus at the moment. That might change at some point, but for now it's going to be a pretty basic bus. I hadn't really thought to much about sound, the classic PC sound was just a timer, but I doubt I would do something that simple. That being said, I do have a rough gameplay going forward of what I'll be adding to the system.
@@Fox-Tech You should definitely take a look into SeaBIOS. SeaBIOS is an open-source legacy BIOS implementation which can be used as a coreboot payload. It implements the standard BIOS calling interfaces that a typical x86 proprietary BIOS implements. In other words with this, you can boot into DOS.
I love the old technology....so much less bloated and simplar than todays multicore CPU's and all the added stuff. I remember back in the 90's if you had a 386 or 486 machine it would display the CPU clock speed on a 7 segment display on the front case!
Cyrix 486 SLC are static CMOS. The 486 DLC is as well. I know they take way less power too. The 486DX might be static as well, having trouble finding docs on the Cx486DX. Based on the 3.3 and 5v tolerances guessing they are, This would allow you to run any minimum clock speed you would like. That might be a consideration. I can't tell if you soldered a socket or the CPU itself. Great project.
Yep, SRAM for the moment (starting with a 32k chip, but planning to move up to 4 512k chips). I do have some plans for DRAM, though I'm planning to do the memory controller from scratch with that, as I don't think it's been done before.
It's been a while since I went through all your videos but do you remember which one you troubleshooted that ram write memory corruption bug in? It's the one where you explained that even if the system was running "at one clock per day" it would still have that issue due to timing. I'm have this elusive bug that's hard to trigger (I finally did find *exactly* what triggers it though) that I think might be related so I'm on another internet researching effort in an attempt to find *any* information about this and that issue you ran into that one time might be similar to the one i'm having. I'm extremely close to getting my fpga chipset driven 486 working I just have to solve this one. final. problem.
Cool seeing it working! :D You could have the rom code copy itself into low memory before doing a long jump. It might be less fuss than trying to map the rom into multiple places in hardware. I'm not sure if you said that; it sounded like you were talking about hardware instead.
The goal is to set up protected mode with a flat memory space before I do the long jump, that way I can just forget all about it segments. :) If I was sticking with real mode, copying the rom down to the low memory location would be what I would do.
A lot of this is still very beyond me, but I recognize the 138 from the Ben Eater 8-bit CPU I'm working on at least! I'm 40 and have been an IT guy all my life, but only recently started diving into the fundamentals. Wish I'd started 30 years ago!
Yo, I've been wanting to start that project for what feels like forever. But the shipping cost to get those kits to Canada is more than the purchase price. Many of us have asked Ben to switch shippers.
@@omgwtfkthxbai I’ve seen that complaint, too. Ben’s a cool guy but I’ve noticed he kinda moves on after he’s done with a project, letting the community keep things rolling. You might be able to find a parts list in /r/beneater and source it domestically.
Super same. I turned 42. Been a software dev for 20 years, well longer but 20 professionally, and I built comouters growing up, but now I want to learn the in depth stuff.
@@Biomancer81 Man that makes me feel better! I’ve built thousands of computers, always used to be a hardware guy, but now everything I do career-wise is cloud/virtual. Got tired of feeling like I was just skimming the surface of everything and desperately needed to do something with my hands.
Props to youtube's algorithm for putting the first video into my recommendations when it was just a couple of days old - been enjoying these videos immensely! Thank you and keep up the awesome work!
Seeing it come to life brought me so much joy! Thanks so much for sharing this project with us!
14:33 "I laugh because I am frustrated" I feel that one!
Big greetings from Russia. Continue on with this topic, it's very interesting and informative.
The types of people that would enjoy this kind of intellectual content typically will be well behaved in the comment section. We're literally not dumb enough for the crude jokes, insults, and other idiocy that you might find in the comments on purely entertainment videos.
This is inspiring stuff, it makes me want to have a go at building a 486 based machine myself. I'm too stuck in Motorola 68k land at the moment though. 😅
Regarding the buffers, my interpretation of the datasheet is that you will require all 4 of them. To quote the datasheet:
"The external system must contain buffers to enable the Intel486 Microprocessor to read and write data on the appropriate data bus pins. Table 7.4 shows the data bus lines where the Intel486 Microprocessor expects data to be returned for each valid combination of byte enables and bus sizing options.
Valid data will only be driven onto data bus pins corresponding to active byte enables during write cycles. ***Other pins in the data bus will be driven but they will not contain valid data.***"
I've emphasised the last sentence there. So it's possible that D7..0 will be driven during a write to another byte, and that will clash with whatever one of the other buffers drives onto the 8 bit bus. Chuck that 4th buffer in. 😄
Thanks for calling that out, I'm pretty sure you (and a few others telling me to do this) are right after all. So I'll probably add the 4th buffer at the start of the next video. :)
I got a push notification for this video the moment it was uploaded. I just thought I would let you know. For some reason youtube seems *REALLY* keen on me watching it, as it's been top of my recommendations since you put it up.
Deam, Ben Eater got a bit higher pinch voice lately /j
Hackaday sent me here. I've been getting ready to fiddle with Ben Eater's 6502 project, but this is pretty dang cool. Thanks for this!
Fantastic video. I never imagined it was possible to breadboard such an advanced x86 processor, let alone with such little hardware. I’m exited to see more of your videos! Thank you.
Loving this series! You have a great voice for this, very easy to listen to
I've been doing software for 15 or so years and I'm just starting getting into hardware and electronics. I hope to create my own breadboard computer , hopefully with some exotic architecture in the future
Very interesting project. I would build at least a serial port for console output before attempting protected mode though. I don't imagine trying to debug triple-faults just by staring at blinking LEDs would be too much fun.
Well, I'm not planning to do much more then set up flat memory with protected mode, at least at first, so there shouldn't be to much of a chance of that happening. Still, I don't plan to do more then that until I get a uart wired up and my forth kernal up and running.
Another grand slam! Getting more jealous of your skills with each new video, and hoping to learn this stuff myself! Bravo! Thanks! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I am always really happy to see you posted a new video.
its really interesting to see your work, and i love the good explenations.
Looks well on its way to the basics, once there is ISA or how ever you plan you will have bread boarded the basis for a dos machine funny enough the 486 to my recall could run doom so that'll be neat when it's up to that point maybe some of the more mucky stuff like sound could be done via a pico pi unless you are going all in there also.
Nice job so far really looking forward to more.
I'm not planning to copy the ISA bus at the moment. That might change at some point, but for now it's going to be a pretty basic bus. I hadn't really thought to much about sound, the classic PC sound was just a timer, but I doubt I would do something that simple.
That being said, I do have a rough gameplay going forward of what I'll be adding to the system.
The ISA bus would require quite a bit of ancillary circuitry, DMA, timers, I/O ports etc
@@Fox-Tech OPL2/3 would be quite easy to implement, just the sound chip and an address decoder.
@@Fox-Tech You should definitely take a look into SeaBIOS.
SeaBIOS is an open-source legacy BIOS implementation which can be used as a coreboot payload. It implements the standard BIOS calling interfaces that a typical x86 proprietary BIOS implements. In other words with this, you can boot into DOS.
long time looking for such a project, thanks for sharing it!
Expecting to see a comment from Ben Eater any day now. :)
This is great stuff.
@BenEater :)
One does hope that Senpai noticed them. :)
Cables are groups of wires; wires are single conductors :)
I love the old technology....so much less bloated and simplar than todays multicore CPU's and all the added stuff. I remember back in the 90's if you had a 386 or 486 machine it would display the CPU clock speed on a 7 segment display on the front case!
Cyrix 486 SLC are static CMOS. The 486 DLC is as well. I know they take way less power too. The 486DX might be static as well, having trouble finding docs on the Cx486DX. Based on the 3.3 and 5v tolerances guessing they are, This would allow you to run any minimum clock speed you would like. That might be a consideration. I can't tell if you soldered a socket or the CPU itself. Great project.
And in the next episode I'm going to hook up some more LEDs so I can run Doom
This is amazing!!! Try to execute a CPU intensive application. And congratulations. A computer scientist and new fan from Brazil
Awesome series! Really enjoying it. 👌
Awesome new video! I take it you're going to use SRAM for now? Any plans for eventually adding an MMU and DRAM?
Yep, SRAM for the moment (starting with a 32k chip, but planning to move up to 4 512k chips). I do have some plans for DRAM, though I'm planning to do the memory controller from scratch with that, as I don't think it's been done before.
@@Fox-Tech That's awesome! Looking forward to it! :)
Another awesome video
It's been a while since I went through all your videos but do you remember which one you troubleshooted that ram write memory corruption bug in? It's the one where you explained that even if the system was running "at one clock per day" it would still have that issue due to timing. I'm have this elusive bug that's hard to trigger (I finally did find *exactly* what triggers it though) that I think might be related so I'm on another internet researching effort in an attempt to find *any* information about this and that issue you ran into that one time might be similar to the one i'm having.
I'm extremely close to getting my fpga chipset driven 486 working I just have to solve this one. final. problem.
Cool seeing it working! :D
You could have the rom code copy itself into low memory before doing a long jump. It might be less fuss than trying to map the rom into multiple places in hardware. I'm not sure if you said that; it sounded like you were talking about hardware instead.
The goal is to set up protected mode with a flat memory space before I do the long jump, that way I can just forget all about it segments. :) If I was sticking with real mode, copying the rom down to the low memory location would be what I would do.
@@Fox-Tech Ah, nice!
What a nice work! Thank you very much.
So cool keep it up!
So it boots into some sort of unreal mode but for code. Interesting.
😂 Nice black on black. We don’t have a floating address line but we have floating hand’s
Nice work!
When you gonna boot Linux ! :D this is great!
A lot of this is still very beyond me, but I recognize the 138 from the Ben Eater 8-bit CPU I'm working on at least! I'm 40 and have been an IT guy all my life, but only recently started diving into the fundamentals. Wish I'd started 30 years ago!
Yo, I've been wanting to start that project for what feels like forever. But the shipping cost to get those kits to Canada is more than the purchase price. Many of us have asked Ben to switch shippers.
@@omgwtfkthxbai I’ve seen that complaint, too. Ben’s a cool guy but I’ve noticed he kinda moves on after he’s done with a project, letting the community keep things rolling. You might be able to find a parts list in /r/beneater and source it domestically.
Super same. I turned 42. Been a software dev for 20 years, well longer but 20 professionally, and I built comouters growing up, but now I want to learn the in depth stuff.
@@Biomancer81 Man that makes me feel better! I’ve built thousands of computers, always used to be a hardware guy, but now everything I do career-wise is cloud/virtual. Got tired of feeling like I was just skimming the surface of everything and desperately needed to do something with my hands.
@@JohnVance I love knowing and understanding. Ive always wanted a greater understanding of how all of the low level hardware logic.
There is a program called Logic Friday that can help you figure out and optimize you logic chips.
Cool, thanks for the heads up. I'll check it out!
is too quiet