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Nanonymous No.1764 [D][U][F][S][L][A][C] >>1765
File: 653534a871027deebe45bc3a00a08a8a9447c1a21b342663697c0cb4f6b8df3a.png (dl) (13.62 KiB)

Could non-botnet pneumatic computers be built?
Pic related, is a schematic for an air-powered transistor which I found online.
I suppose the solid layer (the grey material) could be transparent plastic or glass (for ease of debugging) or metal. The flexible layer (black material) could be cling film or equivalent.
If those materials could be used, and the transistor actually worked, this would be really easy to do at home.

Nanonymous No.1765 [D][U][F] >>1767
File: 801e05363b679ef4ee24eefa9486ee9ff26f1feb2b6ecafa6a8a472295c62a89.jpg (dl) (2.06 MiB)

>>1764
Sure. Build 1,000,000 of those pneumatic transistors and you'll have something similar (in transistor count) to a 486. It'll be the size of a shipping container.

Nanonymous No.1767 [D] >>1769

>>1765
486, 386SL and anything higher are botnet. They have System Management Mode, which is basically like the Intel ME that nobody bothered to make a fuss about.
386 and 286 are both bloat. They include circuitry for protected mode and real mode, which isn't necessary.
Take as an example the Intel 4004. It has only 2300 transistors, and if someone built a pneumatic (or hydraulic) version in their garage I'd still be impressed.
The 8080 which is starting to be a "real" CPU has 4500 transistors. If someone built that in their garage, I'd be very impressed already.

Nanonymous No.1769 [D] >>1777

>>1767
>486, 386SL and anything higher are botnet.
If you could stop memeing about muh botnet for a minute, you might realize that I was comparing transistor counts, not suggesting that you replicate a 486 with SMM.
>The 8080 which is starting to be a "real" CPU has 4500 transistors. If someone built that in their garage, I'd be very impressed already.
If you're content with a processor with <10,000 transistors, you can buy a Z80 or a 6502 for a few bucks.

Nanonymous No.1777 [D]

>>1769
And I'm saying that it's unrealistic for you to say "muh transistor count muh 486" when a real 486's transistor count includes all those transistors required to implement SMM, and protected mode, and all those complicated floating point instructions which aren't of use for some amateur just looking to build "a CPU".

Nanonymous No.1781 [D] >>1782

Why not use a FPGA and have it programmed using free software. Some of the supported FPGAs can even handle running Linux.

Nanonymous No.1782 [D] >>1821

>>1781
FPGAs which can be used with free software are very rare. Some of them even have a shitty ARM CPU integrated with them, so that defeats the whole point.
I'm sure you could find one that's non-botnet though. Maybe put a risc-v core on it.

Nanonymous No.1821 [D]

>>1782
There's several that you can use. Works is going on for supporting Xilinx 7, Lattice iCE40, and Latice ECP5 fpgas.
>Some of them even have a shitty ARM CPU integrated with them
Mine has this. It's kind of cool because you can program both the cpu and fpga and have them work together. By default though the cpu is programmed to be able to flash the fpga chip. Note that this is just a dev board so nothing is stopping your from designing your own circuit board without that ARM CPU. You could even just take a knife to the dev board and cut a couple of the traces to the ARM chip.