TTL cookbook
This best selling book has become the standard reference to TTL devices. It tells what they are, how they work, and how to use them. TTL Cookbook is filled with typical circuits and practical applications to aid the user who wants to learn about and use TTL. Book jacket.
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9recommend
13mentions
13people
2013–2025years
69% recommend31% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Ben Eater computer is an interesting starting point. With a few modifications, such as an extended program counter / address bus, a combinatorial ALU programmed in flash, and a few more registers, it can be upgraded to a more powerful, if slow, computer.
Further, these circuits can be directly simulated in an FPGA if you want to teach yourself an HDL like VHDL or Verilog. You really want to learn better and faster ways to organize a CPU, but it's a fun way for a beginner to bridge into this kind of work.
At the local hackerspace, we actually taught a class that assembled a hybrid 8-bit / 16-bit variation of this computer with 1MB of RAM, an 8-bit ALU, a 16-bit data bus / registers, and a 20-bit address bus. With this additional capability, we could program it over serial with a very basic bootloader, and it was powerful enough to compute pi to 1000 digits. Granted, this took about 18 hours, but it could have run faster with a printed circuit board and a crystal oscillator. We just never really got to that point.
As for how powerful such a computer with discrete logic can be, consider that the KB-11A CPU for the PDP-11/45 was built using 74-series logic ICs. It wasn't until after this system that DEC moved on to VSLI. So, this is a way to play with technology found in computers in 1972 / 1973.
As a stepping stone to digital logic and FPGA work, Ben Eater's tutorial isn't bad. Just get yourself a copy of Don Lancaster's TTL Cookbook or CMOS Cookbook to bring his tutorial up to best practices.
- I had both versions of the Sather book, for the II and //e. I bought the Apple when I decided these computer thingies were catching on, and I wanted to learn how they worked. I had to drop back to Don Lancaster's TTL Cookbook to get a basic understanding of logic blocks.
I always found it useful to have a question in mind when you start tearing into something. In my case, it was "how does it know that an "A" on this TV should be composed of just those dots? Why can't I have other fonts? You can't search for only these answers, or you'll miss the important stuff. Eventually, I learned mostly how it worked (the A2D2 Disk Interface card was a revelation).
Then I decided to close the loop on my question, and modify the Character Generator ROM to use a typeface of my own choosing. The chars were stored backwards, due to how the bits were clocked out of the ROM. So I had to do a bit of fiddling to get everything right, then I burned it into an EPROM (2708, IIRC). The stock ROM used a 2500 series PROM, and the enable pins were different. So I wired up two sockets, jumpering the 3 enable pins to line up for the EPROM. The entire mobo was socketed, which made this sort of hardware hacking easy. After a couple of tries, it was working. My //e still has my own custom font on it to this day.
So I was able to learn at a good time. But I missed out on learning about big systems, which were still the mainstream at the time. I even worked with some of them (a Data General Nova at work, and an IBM System/3 to learn FORTRAN IV), but did not realize they were an opportunity to get in to the scene early. Others my age, who lived in more affluent areas, were able to learn early machines, even being paid to program them.
The past always looks better, or simpler, or more understandable, but it never is. The "Good Old Days" never were. You can learn things with today's systems that I will probably never be able to understand. And that's the proper way of things.
- Maybe it is generational but Don Lancaster Cookbooks was far more influential on me. His books were far more useful and instructive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster
RTL Cookbook, TTL Cookbook, CMOS Cookbook, Active Filter Cookbook, TV Typewriter Cookbook, Cheap Video Cookbook, Son of Cheap Video, Apple books, Assembly Cookbook for Apple II/IIe, Enhancing Your Apple II - Volume 1, Enhancing Your Apple II and IIe - Volume 2, Applewriter Cookbook, Programming books, The Hexadecimal Chronicles, Don Lancaster's Micro Cookbook
- > he’s well known for his TTL Cookbook and CMOS Cookbook.
Those two books were my best purchases back in the day, they helped immensely to grasp the technology. I see they're now free for download at Don's page, and they're still relevant today. I would highly recommend them to all newcomers to electronics.
- I stil have several of his books within a few feet: the TTL Cookbook was an inspiration back in the day, followed the CMOS version and in particular "The Cheap Video Cookbook" when VT100's were mad expensive things.
The book that still get used on a moderately frequent basis is the "Active Filter Cookbook", still very relevant when some hacking with op-amps is required.
Oh, and as an oldie I like his style.
- I grew up with Don Lancaster's TTL Cookbook and spent a lot of fun hours breadboarding things that beeped and blinked. He has now made it and many others like his Active Filter and CMOS Cookbooks available on his quirky, old school website.
https://www.tinaja.com/ebksamp1.shtml
