[ChuckMcM]

Nice Job! Don't be discouraged when people say "What a waste of time, why didn't you just use an Arduino?"

When I went to college I had a choice of majoring in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering (there weren't computer systems degrees at the time). Since I really really wanted to know how to build a computer from the ground up (I had assembled one from a kit already in high school and was hungry to know more!) I chose getting my degree in EE with a minor in CS. I don't know where you are in your studies but if you have the opportunity you might find, as I did, that this path scratches that particular itch.

There are a number of books you might track down which you would find interesting given what you now have learned about computer internals. One is "A DEC view on hardware design" which talks about the minicomputers and their architecture that DEC designed. "Introduction to Computer Systems using the PDP-11 and PASCAL" (McGraw-Hill computer science series). And "Digital Computer Design" by Kline. All are out of print but a good computer science section in a library should have them.

One of the reasons I enjoy the older books on computer design is that they assume you don't know why different paths were chosen and so they explain in more detail why one path is better than another. Modern texts often assume you have learned these best practices elsewhere and so treat these design decisions as given knowledge.

If you ever do decide to pick it up again, the two places that you might find rewarding would be automated co-processing (like DMA controllers) and complex mathematical instructions (like floating point).

[F4HDK]

Thank you very much for this encouraging comment! I ended my studies 15 years ago, I made this project as an "autodidact". I don't know if I will work again on such projects, because I have tons of other electronic topics I want to work on (mainly radio). But if I pick it up again, it will be with a brand new CPU project.