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| author | Alexis Hovorka <[email protected]> | 2022-11-30 20:54:52 -0700 |
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| committer | Alexis Hovorka <[email protected]> | 2022-11-30 20:54:52 -0700 |
| commit | 07a0b6ab99a389d7d5abb73c903d99813df8e1d1 (patch) | |
| tree | 3c66d6b51a942f166ecede492090b3ee9a5714f2 | |
| parent | 339d5507ea8adc95f4bd6b0370ae4c8ddcb9d3db (diff) | |
[feat] Add README
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 29 |
1 files changed, 29 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0646dd8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +RISC-16 +================ + +A 16-bit RISC CPU/SOC in Verilog for the ULX3S ECP5 dev board, with +self-hosting software infrastructure + +## Why? + +I've often found that the best way for me to prove to myself that I understand +something, and to fill in the gaps in my understanding when I discover them, is +to try to build it from scratch. This is a self-guided experiment to see just +how much I understand about computers generally---dipping all the way down into +hardware design and implementation, and bootstrapping an entire self-hosting +operating system all on my own. I'm allowing myself to pull inspiration and +documentation from outside sources, but as near as I can manage, every +configurable bit in the central system will have been set either manually or by +software I created using the system itself. + +This has already afforded me some unique opportunities, such as dogfooding the +ISA as I use it to incrementally build up an assembler for it, and exploring +low-level design choices that didn't pan out the way I thought (leaving me with +knowledge of *why* those aspects of the system changed to be the way they are). + +A tentative moonshot goal of this project is to flesh it out enough both with +software and user-facing peripherals that I can start using it as something +approaching a daily driver laptop. This isn't necessarily saying much in terms +of flashiness or performance; the Linux command line is a familiar home for me, +if that conveys enough of an image. As things develop, I'm sure this goal will +gradually take a more defined shape. |