With that, the 8 Bit Computer project was essentially finished.
This was my second large electronics project, and it was a lot of fun to work on. It’s difficult to consider it “completely done” (some minor issues and optional improvements remain), but I decided I’d call it done and maybe get back to it later – though that seems to be a recurring theme with all hobby projects, at least in my experience.
Also, none of these imperfections change what this project is: A fully functional basic computer that, in my opinion, looks great, and is a nice tool to show how computers work on a basic level.
This project was designed and mostly built before I started my university education in computer science. The experience from it helped me a lot in my first computer architecture courses, as I already knew a lot of the concepts. However, there were many things that I didn’t know prior to taking those courses, and many things I’ve learned about computer architecture that I didn’t know when designing this computer. So looking back at it, there are quite a few things I would do differently if I were to start a project like this now. Still, I am proud of it and happy with how it turned out.
In the future, I may design a new computer, perhaps implementing some more advanced computer architecture features and avoiding some of the problems that I encountered and worked around in this one. Until then, I recommend everyone who’s interested to keep looking into this topic – there is much more to learn than what I’ve covered here!
Until the next project!
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