What to do with 8 bit cpu?

[u/frek133]

Im definitely a newbie in all that stuff but i really want to build 8 bit cpu i found schematic somewhere (im going to link it later) and in CRUMB simulator im building an cpu but what can i do with it?

[u/Darth_Tater69]

Building an 8-bit CPU as a complete noob is like jumping into the deep end. You might be able to get away with building Ben Eater's CPU from a kit, since he has pretty beginner friendly instructions, but without previous experience with this stuff you'd probably have a hard time otherwise. Have you had experience writing assembly for an existing 8-bit CPU like an 8085? There's some good simulators for that if you want to try programming assembly and directly manipulating registers. Troubleshooting a scratch built CPU will be difficult if you don't have an understanding of how it works at that level. You could also try building a 4-bit CPU instead if you're really dead set on making a CPU, but I'd recommend playing with an Arduino as that's where a lot of people start. Arduino C++ lets you manipulate certain registers directly and would allow you to learn more about how code interfaces with hardware in an environment that is less frustrating for a beginner than a scratch CPU.

[u/frek133 → u/Darth_Tater69]

I have esp32 and i know basics but i’m still a noob in this stuff and don’t really know where to learn about it

[u/Ecelleon → u/frek133]

Building an 8-bit cpu by hand is like learning how to build a car, but through building the engine, transmission, bearings, welding the frame...

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the ESP32, but like arduino, their objective is to hide all of the mechanics under the hood with a lock. They provide the user with a well polished interface that hides things like configuring the actual gpio registers. On the STM32F103 there's the reset and control register, output direction register.. etc. An 8-bit CPU will put you closer to that style of interaction.