Pineapple ONE is a functioning (macro) processor, that is based on an open-source architecture RISC-V. This architecture is becoming very popular these days, and it is well, open-source, so we chose to build a cpu only out of discrete, off-the-shelf components. You heard it right, there is no FPGA nor any microcontroller, there are just logic gates and memories. Our goal is to prove that designing a “modern” CPU isn’t that hard, so we have released our schematics and made it open source as well. You can check out our GitHub repository for more information. If there would be enough interest, maybe we could make a DIY kit, so anybody interested with soldering skills would be able to make their own Pineapple ONE!
Don’t think you can run Crysis on this though – it runs at 500 kHz, has a 512 kB program memory and 512 kB of RAM, and a black and white graphics card with 200×150 pixels. It’s no speed demon, but who cares – this is quite the feat.
That’s nice, but an FPGA implementation would be much more useful.
That’s just not the point of this project.
Kochise,
I’m sure you’re right, but I was thinking the exact same thing as kurkosdr, haha. From a practical perspective an fpga would be smaller, faster, easier, more efficient and probably cheaper than the sum of discrete components.
Even if it’s not practical, I can appreciate there is learning value.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLs_NRwu1Y4
Though learning to do it on an FPGA would be good too.