Building an 8-bit computer in Logisim (Part 1 — Building Blocks)
Last semester I built a basic 8-bit computer in Logisim. This all started because of a course that I took last semester at uni called Introduction to Computer Systems. This class is used to be three separate classes which got melded together into one. It was a LOT of information to absorb, everything from Assembly to the OSI model to analogue and digital signal processing to logic gates.
Logic gates really interested me. I had seen them before but had not given them much thought or knew what they were. By this point in my degree, I was familiar with AND and OR in programming. But seeing logic represented in circuits was new and exciting.
My lecturer mentioned this program called Logisim which was like a playground for logic gates. So when I really should have been finishing my Programming Fundamentals assignment, I downloaded Logisim and had a play around. I remember thinking to myself, “I just want to make an 8-bit adder”. But let’s just say I got hooked and after a week of ignoring my other assignments, I had built a basic 8-bit computer in Logisim.
In this part of the series, I want to layout the primary building blocks that I used to create the computer, and hopefully, show you how cool logic gates are.