Help with ALU
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Hi, this is my first time posting to a forum thread in TPT, so please bare with me if I seem vague or indirect :). I recently became interested in microelectronics / computer parts in TPT; before that, it was just finding popular saves, filling them with PLUT and exploding it. I have made multiple memory / storage saves already, and am currently working on a sort of 3D printer; but in the end I would like to focus in on actual computers. Now, as I understand it, these need (1) memory, which I have, (2) a basic input and / or output, which shouldn't be too hard, and (3) an ALU or similar processing unit. In mecha-man's save, they included 2 ALU's; unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how to use them or integrate them with anything else. I did some basic research on Wikipedia and other sources on ALU's, and they were little help either. Can someone please direct me to a basic tutorial, or explain what these are / how to use them? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Edited once by cellman123. Last: 16th Oct 2017 -
ALU stands for Arithmetic Logic Unit, its basically the part of the CPU that computes numbers. Its composed of many pieces of circuitry that perform many operations, such as addition, subtraction, bitwise logic, etc. The amount of operations is up to you. ALUs usually take two operands, and process one output, they also have to have an opcode input in order to let the ALU know what to do; and, the same as before, the opcode values are up to you.
You'll have to develop circuitry for every operation you might implement, and then some way to redirect bus inputs to the operation's circuitry based on the selected opcode, the same for the output.
I hope that makes it a little bit clearer for you.
