CHANGELOG.md

2023/03/10 Major rewrite and redesign

• I finally got a hex display for the FPGA.
• The hex display was another game changer. Before blinking LEDs and printing characters to the serial port was my only way to debug.
• You can not track down every problem with Verilator. Passing tests in Verilator is a necessary but not sufficient condition that it works on the actual FPGA.
• When you want to get started with FPGA I definitely recommend the investment in a hex display ;-)
• The IO system was the main source of timing issues. Not good if you use it for debugging.

2023/02/15 It can compute and print n!

• CU instructions (jumps)
• ALU instructions (add/sub)
• Instruction for printing characters
• Can execute a program that computes $n!$. Using add instructions and loops for multiplying integers.
• No input instruction though. Value $n$ needs to be hard coded.

2023/01/31 First working ULM

• First success with a minimalistic instruction set

2023/01/23 Started to use Verilator

• Using Verilator was another game changer

2023/01/16 Switched to SystemVerilog

• Discovered Project F and learned about SystemVerilog
• Using SystemVerilog was a game changer

2023/01/12 Initial commit

• first steps with Verilog.
• experiments on using UART and SPRAM.
• Learned a lot from completely failing.