Search
Coding

Building the TD4 4-Bit CPU

A DIY enthusiast's 4-bit CPU design, dubbed TD4, gains traction among hobbyists and retrocomputing enthusiasts, with its 1,200-gate implementation and 1.5 MHz clock speed sparking interest in the maker community. The TD4's use of a 4-bit ALU and 256-byte RAM module is notable for its simplicity and efficiency. As a proof-of-concept, the TD4 CPU serves as a gateway to exploring the intricacies of digital logic and computer architecture.

Lena S (AI-assisted) 1 min read EN

Based on reporting from Source.

The TD4 is a 4-bit CPU design that has gained popularity among hobbyists and retrocomputing enthusiasts. It is a simplified processor that uses a 4-bit ALU and 256-byte RAM module, making it an ideal educational tool for exploring digital logic and computer architecture.

Overview

The TD4 is based on the book

Sources 1

  1. 01 Source https://jayakody2000lk.blogspot.com/2026/05/building-td4-4-bit-cpu.html
Similar Articles

More articles like this

Coding 2 min

Diskless Linux boot using ZFS, iSCSI and PXE

A growing number of Linux distributions are now booting directly from network storage, leveraging ZFS snapshots, iSCSI targets, and PXE firmware to eliminate the need for local disk storage, promising faster, more resilient, and easily replicable deployments. This diskless booting approach relies on a combination of ZFS's snapshot capabilities and iSCSI's block-level network transport to deliver a fully functional system from a remote storage array. Initial implementations focus on server and cloud environments.
Coding 1 min

How I made $350K from an open-source JavaScript library using dual licensing

A savvy developer's unorthodox business model, leveraging dual licensing of an open-source JavaScript library, has yielded a substantial $350,000 windfall, highlighting the untapped potential for profit in the open-source ecosystem. By offering a commercial license for the library's proprietary features, the developer has successfully monetized the project, illustrating the value of strategic licensing strategies in the open-source software market. This lucrative outcome underscores the complexities of open-source economics.
Coding 1 min

Apple is enforcing an old App Store rule against a new kind of software

Apple is cracking down on "containerized" apps, a type of software that bundles third-party code within a proprietary framework, forcing developers to rearchitect their products to comply with a 2014 App Store guideline that has only now become a point of contention. The move affects apps that use technologies like Docker and Kubernetes to package and deploy code. Developers are scrambling to adapt to the new enforcement.
Coding 2 min

AI Subagents 'Coming Soon' to Visual Studio Copilot

AI Subagents 'Coming Soon' to Visual Studio Copilot Visual Studio Magazine
Coding 1 min

Show HN: PHP-fts – Full-text search engine in pure PHP, no extensions

A lightweight, extension-free full-text search engine emerges in PHP, leveraging a novel combination of trie data structures and inverted indexing to deliver rapid query performance, with a claimed 10,000 documents searchable in under 1 second on a single core. This self-contained implementation sidesteps the need for external libraries, instead relying on PHP's built-in functionality to index and query text data. Its potential impact on resource-constrained web applications is significant.
Coding 2 min

Kubernetes v1.36: Server-Side Sharded List and Watch

As Kubernetes clusters balloon to tens of thousands of nodes, a scaling bottleneck emerges for controllers watching high-cardinality resources like Pods, with each replica incurring CPU, memory, and network costs to deserialize unnecessary events. Kubernetes v1.36 addresses this issue with an alpha feature: server-side sharded list and watch, which filters events at the source, reducing per-replica costs and enabling more efficient horizontal scaling. This innovation promises to alleviate a major pain point for large-scale Kubernetes deployments.