It’s been a bit quiet on the relay computer front again for a while … well it is summer after all and there’s no point staying inside the house tending to my hobbies when I can be running around outside getting sunburnt. Of course though, this is the UK and summer consists mostly of rain (as do most of the other seasons here) so what other excuse do I have for not posting in ages?
Well, I have been busy working on the relay computer but not in the way you might expect. A comment on one of my YouTube videos recently got me thinking … it was a question around if I simulate the computer at each stage before building it for real. I had to admit that so far I’d been crossing my fingers and just going for it but as I get in to more complicated areas the benefits of simulating first seemed quite appealing. It just so happened that this coincided with needing to brush up on my web developing skills so this seemed a good time to kills two birds with one stone as the old saying goes.
So, getting straight to it you can find my simulator here. Feel free to have a play - I haven’t tested it much beyond my own computer and a couple of tablets/phones etc so it might not work everywhere (such is the ‘challenge’ of developing for the web) but hopefully most newish browsers should be fine. If it doesn’t work for you then here’s a picture of what it would have looked like had it worked:
Sorry, that was probably a bit of a tease if it really didn’t work for you but if it didn’t work (and you really, really, really do want to have a play with it) then feel free to contact me in the comments below or on Google+ etc and I’ll try and work out what’s going on.
In terms of ‘business as usual’ I’ve got most of the design complete for the memory card so I’ll share that here shortly. What I’ll also do going forward is alongside each card design I publish I’ll update the simulation so you (and I) can try out the new card before I solder it up for real.