04 Mar 2019 - 12 min read
After years of using pad/prototyping boards to build my computer I’ve decided to switch things up a bit and have a go at making a custom PCB. The thinking is that it …
14 Jan 2019 - 6 min read
In my last post I touched on how the repetitive nature of making register cards has been putting me off progressing my relay computer. If you’ve followed my blog (over …
06 Jan 2019 - 4 min read
Procrastination is the thief of time
… or so the proverb goes … and it’s fair to say I’ve been procrastinating quite a bit recently. I typically take a summer break from working on the …
27 Mar 2018 - 4 min read
Auxiliary Control Construction
In my last three posts I covered the design of the auxiliary control unit which will ease entering and inspecting programs in the computer’s memory. With the design ‘in the …
07 Feb 2018 - 4 min read
Auxiliary Control Design (Part 3 of 3)
This is the last post in a mini-series of three covering the design of the auxiliary control unit which will ease entering and inspecting programs in the computer’s …
29 Jan 2018 - 12 min read
Auxiliary Control Design (Part 2 of 3)
In my last post I made a start on the auxiliary control design which once completed will make it much easier to load instructions in to memory - effectively it’s a …
24 Jan 2018 - 6 min read
Auxiliary Control Design (Part 1 of 3)
My relay computer is now at the point where it can execute a program in memory without assistance. In order to do that though, of course, the program needs to be loaded into …
16 Jan 2018 - 3 min read
Fetch and Increment - Construction and Test
This is a bit of a landmark moment … at least for the construction of my relay computer. For a long time now my blog posts have been leading up to the point where my …
07 Jan 2018 - 1 min read
In my last two posts I covered the construction of the upper and lower incrementer cards. The lower card is a 16-bit half adder and the upper card is a 16-bit register. …
17 Dec 2017 - 2 min read
Incrementer Construction (Part 2 of 2)
In my last post I covered the construction of the lower incrementer card which is effectively a 16-bit half adder. This time I’m going to cover constructing the upper …
10 Dec 2017 - 3 min read
Incrementer Construction (Part 1 of 2)
We’re getting nearer and nearer to a computer that can run though a program in memory rather than just a single instruction … we’ve got memory to hold the …
30 Nov 2017 - 2 min read
I’ve covered the construction of the upper and lower memory cards in my last two posts … it’s now time to bring those two cards together to form the memory …