I built my own 16-Bit CPU in Excel

Рет қаралды 1,360,359

3 ай бұрын

To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/Inkbox. The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription.
I designed my own 16-Bit Computer in Microsoft Excel without using Visual Basic scripts, plugins, or anything other than plain Excel. This system on a spreadsheet is based off of a custom Instruction Set Architecture that has a total of 23 instruction mnemonics and 26 opcodes.
The main design of the CPU is broken into a fetch unit, control unit, arithmetic logic unit, register file, PC unit, several multiplexers, a memory control unit, a 128KB RAM table, and a 128x128 16-color display.
Try it out down below:
github.com/InkboxSoftware/exc...
This video was sponsored by Brilliant
computer chip by MITHUN T M from Noun Project
Memory by Alvida from Noun project
Calculator by Uswa KDT from Noun Project

Пікірлер: 2 100

@InkboxSoftware 3 ай бұрын

To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/Inkbox. The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription.

@commanderofthewind 3 ай бұрын

Okeydokey

@CuriosityDynamics 3 ай бұрын

Next do “installing Windows 98 in Excel”

@R.B. 3 ай бұрын

The are some channels that have been running this offer for years. How do you know if you're going to be one of the lucky "first 200?"

@barrycaplin1394 3 ай бұрын

NO! SHOVE YOUR SPONSOR RIGHT WHERE IT FITS!!

@misterhat5823 3 ай бұрын

Automatic thumbs down for putting the sponsor in the middle.

@baddreamreset 3 ай бұрын

Next episode: Excel running on Excel

@KatTheCaz 3 ай бұрын

*at 0.00000000000148 FPS

@absolutetruth9975 3 ай бұрын

Minecraft on excel. Doom on excel.. mario! Emulation! The possibilities!

@rock4459 3 ай бұрын

@@absolutetruth9975Yes if you give it enough time and memory 😏

@pizzainc.1465 3 ай бұрын

This is so cliche and annoying. However, its better than the comments that are like “oH My gOodNeSS hE iS lIkE a gEnIus hE sHoUlD gEt a nObEL PEacE pRize”

@LKComputes 3 ай бұрын

If one were able to implement an 8086 and simple VGA, it’d be the best kind of possible.

@randomnik70 3 ай бұрын

Interviewer: How good are you with Excel? Inkbox:

@Samethok 3 ай бұрын

Dude's resume is just a link to this video

@shaywaterstheone9477 3 ай бұрын

this man basically made a VM in excel. This is a level of genius i cant even understand

@WatercraftGames 2 ай бұрын

Turing completeness is so beautiful

@Breakfast_of_Champions 2 ай бұрын

Finally a Zoomer worth his salt

@tyttuut Ай бұрын

@@Breakfast_of_Champions ok boomer

@MoldCollecter Ай бұрын

can it run doom

@thechicken2634 Ай бұрын

Technically it's an emulator

@Silvahhhhhhhhhh 3 ай бұрын

It's the year 2100, super computing became the consumer norm. Humans managed to emulate the performance of a 4090ti on Space-Excel and managed to run old games such as Starfield and GTA 6 with native Windows 11 support in a Windows 48 machine

@SheeshMiester 3 ай бұрын

Lol

@Arnauero3.0 3 ай бұрын

jajajaj

@zrayx7214 3 ай бұрын

They are waiting for Gta 7

@galacticviper4453 3 ай бұрын

@@zrayx7214 and Portal 3🤣

@AnonymousApexio 2 ай бұрын

@@galacticviper4453 and half life 3 😭😭

@yds6268 3 ай бұрын

"The best kind of possible - theoretically possible" - I'm stealing that

@NotHumanPerson 3 ай бұрын

i love how that looks as if the source of the quote is "I'm stealing that"

@dylankrejci9965 3 ай бұрын

@@NotHumanPerson””The best kind of possible - theoretically possible” - I’m Stealing That” - Michael Scott

@user-dw9up3gg7d 3 ай бұрын

yeah this is one of the best jokes i've ever heard

@Ce0ammer 3 ай бұрын

Slight adjustment to the Futurama meme innit?

@ebullientbronco9859 15 күн бұрын

🤓

@NigelMelanisticSmith 3 ай бұрын

I love the restraint of not using VBA. I'm always more impressed when people make things in Excel and PowerPoint and don't just transform everything using Macros.

@le9038 3 ай бұрын

Like that one guy that made PowerPoint Turing complete...

@gdutfulkbhh7537 3 ай бұрын

Excel on non-Windoze platforms is crippled, but this would work.

@s0lly 3 ай бұрын

Yea I did a raytracer only using Excel formulae. Much more fun having to work out solutions that don’t use VBA.

@philmcgroin 3 ай бұрын

I'd have been tempted to add some VBA right at the end to generate the clock, but I can see that would open the door to more stuff. So yes impressive restraint indeed and a great video!

@cjsmith411yt 3 ай бұрын

It might also make it more cross-platform compatible. Open Office sometimes has issues with Macro import, but cell formulas should be easier to import.

@VmMW96 3 ай бұрын

But can it run Doom?

@murialvoid85 Ай бұрын

Yes, google “excel doom game”

@realryder2626 Ай бұрын

Port it from graphics calculator?

@axelkidd9850 Ай бұрын

Or Wolfenstein 3Diagram 📈 ?

@theguywiththewhiteblanket Ай бұрын

@@axelkidd9850no, doom

@ben33045 Ай бұрын

Yes

@curiousbat5368 3 ай бұрын

After all of the insane job, I still felt so anxious about the "MANAGEMNET" thing at 14:34 Lol

@HomeofLawboy 3 ай бұрын

now we wait for the Doom ports, and the Bad Apple animations

@Ikxi 3 ай бұрын

www

@jimlahey4995 3 ай бұрын

This

@pabloalonso9083 3 ай бұрын

Hahahaha

@afnankabir2190 3 ай бұрын

I was here ☕

@Mistyre 3 ай бұрын

And the rickroll music

@jimlahey4995 3 ай бұрын

7:09 “most of the operations are simple” that is the most complex excel formula I’ve seen lol

@feixin_duke 2 ай бұрын

It’s pretty much just some simple code for doing math but in a really really unreadable way. Pretty much it’s like “okay is the clock tickin? Yeah? Ok then so like do I add, subtract, multiply, divide, etc…? Ok so you want me to add? Ok I’ll add these two numbers together.” In other words, “b30 is the clock tick and this cell is equal to a value dependent on the clocks tick as well as d30 which controls which operand is being done.”

@sgsax 3 ай бұрын

I took a microcomputer architecture class in college 30 years ago. I clearly have forgotten a lot about that class. Outstanding execution here. Thanks for sharing!

@BikeArea 11 күн бұрын

That CPU design is awesome - for sure. But can we talk about the documentation, i. e. this video? So fabulously made and with the huge fonts and graphics an absolute joy to watch. Thanks for taking the time to create such a gem!

@Caeleste-42bit 3 ай бұрын

The moment your CPU notices you have been cheating on it with Excel

@gooseloose682 3 ай бұрын

it is more like a poly relationship really. Your cpu is totally in on it

@rav6324 Ай бұрын

@@gooseloose682 reddit cuck cpu

@prettymuchabandonedaccount9141 Ай бұрын

Emulators and VMs be like:

@FireFox2313-di6bk 3 ай бұрын

If this doesn’t go viral, I’m actually gonna be mad

@killpidone 3 ай бұрын

That requires running doom on it

@FireFox2313-di6bk 3 ай бұрын

@@killpidone my god, a genius!

@Wasabialt 3 ай бұрын

Same.

@FireFox2313-di6bk 3 ай бұрын

@@user-cs8qq5vt4v ik

@redrush-hp9li 3 ай бұрын

@mariogonzalezramirez9486 3 ай бұрын

This is maybe the greatest video i have seen in the last few years. This video and your project would have helped me a lot to explain to my students of computer architecture. I will download all the files and analize them carefully.

@jasonfails237 3 ай бұрын

This is one of the craziest projects I've ever seen, and explained so well at that. Great video! Earned my sub.

@HeadsetHistorian 3 ай бұрын

'High level assembly code' **Bursts into tears as someone that has never gone lower than C++**

@jordixboy 3 ай бұрын

assembly is not that hard, its pretty simple language, a lot simpler than c++

@mikafoxx2717 3 ай бұрын

@@jordixboyI used to think assembly was complicated, but really it's just a simple functional language, in a way. You can get really creative with your solutions for problems instead of doing bulk things, like maybe leaving Y register untouched in this function specifically so the calling function can forgo saving it. Most assembly languages are just the same basic principles but with some different commands or limitations, some need more instructions to do the same function as an x86 one, for instance. That's why macro assemblers exist. Sure, it's probably not a good idea to do anything substantial in it, but at least knowing what decent assembly looks like, so your most used functions can be assessed for optimization. Could also have fun with a 6502 or z80 retro computer as a learning experience.

@ireallydontknowifiamhonest 3 ай бұрын

@@jordixboy assembly isn't hard in itself but the trickiness starts arising when you start doing everything in it, at that point you pretty much have to manage everything yourself, which is pretty fun actually

@BibleClinger 3 ай бұрын

I found 6502 assembly was really fun. It was designed to be used by humans. Even with as difficult as it is, there is something really enjoyable and simplistic about it.

@mikafoxx2717 3 ай бұрын

@@ireallydontknowifiamhonest yeah, bookkeeping in a way gets hard, or if your code block gets so big that directly indexed jumps aren't far enough.. and then you have to push and pop registers awkwardly and whatnot.

@BrianBuonomo 3 ай бұрын

This is incredible. I’ve been teaching “computer repair” for 25 years. Over the years there have been a few students that actually asked “but how does the cpu move data? How does it process the instructions?” I always gave a simplified explanation, as it doe snot fall into the scope of building and troubleshooting desktop PCs. Now I can show them this video to get an idea on the logic. :-) Thankfully there are also videos out there on “building your own CPU.” Thank you for sharing this! Incredible work!

@Peacfull 3 ай бұрын

you ruined many student's life

@Kanibulus 3 ай бұрын

There is a great book that really explain the principles and logic of a cpu. Its called "But how do it know" I strongly recommend it

@StayBassd 3 ай бұрын

Code by Charles Petzold is also rly good

@radiokaos612 3 ай бұрын

Flip flops

@AnonymousApexio 2 ай бұрын

@@PeacfullReal

@LeedleFace1212 3 ай бұрын

Can it run doom?

@suavesoft 3 ай бұрын

One word: OUTSTANDING!! Cant wait to see how you improve on it. Well done, sir!

@ZipplyZane 3 ай бұрын

The one bit of VBA that I think might be justified is a completely optional script that can "click" the clock cycle button for you, seeing how fast you can get it to run.

@R.B. 3 ай бұрын

100%. I think you can evaluate if a worksheet is calculating, so just monitoring that would be enough. Then you could have it clock the system. I think if someone is writing a compiler in Python, then using VBA for this sort of operation is an acceptable application. I think it would also be justifiable to apply the cell coloring for the screen pixels in the same way, allowing 16.7 M true color output... This is just because Excel has a restriction for modifying the color of cells programmatically, but it unlocks a lot of potential that conditional formatting can't. For the sane reason, VBA could be used for loading the ROM. This wouldn't be all that different than using an EPROM burner, which still doesn't diminish or detract from the Excel CPU.

@pacomatic9833 3 ай бұрын

Yeah, that would be a whole lot better than doing ALL of it manually.

@ragnarok7976 3 ай бұрын

I'll have to play with it next time I'm at my computer but I think you might be able to get some sort of iterative calculation going (there is a setting in excel to allow it). Might just end up in an infinite loop that will crash Excel but it would be so neat to have a fast clock powered by formulas to keep the whole thing as pure as possible. Not even sure my version of Excel supports them but I've heard there is a lambda formula that can call other formulas so there may be a solution to be had there as well. I guess you could also implement a function (not a sub) in VBA that toggles a cell in a loop and then use that function in the formula bar (excel treats VBA functions as custom formulas since they both take some parameter(s) and return a result). Still cheating to me (especially since you'd likely wouldn't be using the return value but rather the loop and a direct reference to a cell) but I guess slightly less than just banging out VBA and running it as a macro.

@Eji1700 3 ай бұрын

Pretty sure the limitation is not how fast you push the button but how long it takes excel to process the formulas. That’s what he demonstrated at the end where each press of the button takes a couple of seconds to process the clock cycle, so any automation there just means you can leave the program running while you run some errands and it finishes in an hour

@ZipplyZane 3 ай бұрын

@@Eji1700 He said it runs at a few hertz, which is about how fast you can click. But, yeah, it's possible it can't run any faster.

@ITPMMentor 3 ай бұрын

As a computer science graduate specializing in databases, I appreciate the brilliance here. This project would be a great introduction to CPU design in a comp sci course. Amazing.

@oneito947 3 ай бұрын

You arr so right, that was my thinking

@CallumsArmy 3 ай бұрын

I learnt more in this than my actual computer science course

@miguelelgueta5830 3 ай бұрын

this dude literally made a full course in cpu design in a 15 minutes video

@antonf.9278 3 ай бұрын

@@miguelelgueta5830Pipelining is an important part of CPU design and rightfully made up the last third of my university's basic course on the matter. The alu was also cut short in the videos explanation and is way easier to implement in Excel. Overall it's a nice video but by no means a course.

@_GTX1650 Ай бұрын

Excuse me, this would be the INTRODUCTION?? damn

@SimpleCarGuy 3 ай бұрын

Been Sys Engineer for 8 years and it was a struggle to follow and understand everything, very complex but cool. Awesome video!

@Mantorix 3 ай бұрын

Have seen this in the news a few days ago and today your video popped up in my YT feed. I just had to click it. Amazing work, i expected some macro stuff but i never imagined this to even be possible just by formulas.

@dempsej 3 ай бұрын

That’s cool and all, but when you realize that all of that is happening right now on the device that you’re watching it (and on servers, routers, switches etc) is MIND BLOWING. And we take it for granted.

@maxarothdev7374 3 ай бұрын

At billions of times a second

@lorenzopliskin1384 3 ай бұрын

if my college teachers used this shit to teach computers architecture I would have been hooked instantly back than great job

@omvarshney4696 3 ай бұрын

Simply, insanely, brilliant. Subscribed!

@JohnHoggard_aka_DaddyHoggy 3 ай бұрын

Bravo. Genuinely brilliant. I'm going to show this to my students.

@bigbigx2250 3 ай бұрын

Emulating physical circuitry with excel is really cool. Great video!

@user-cr6rg6nl7j 3 ай бұрын

Excel is already powerful so this wasv rudimentary at best...

@oneito947 3 ай бұрын

Should be taught on cs

@TracyNorrell 3 ай бұрын

I'm going to rewrite Excel to run on your new CPU!

@joaoarmandogallas1373 3 ай бұрын

I had a degree in electronics like 14 years ago and it's amazing to see this. you put a lot of work. nice job

@TheProfessorProdigy 2 ай бұрын

This is so cool we started to implement our own ISA by scratch with RISC-V in my computer org class. Thanks for a great video!

@brandonechols 3 ай бұрын

This is literally the best thing I've ever watched. It's really great to see others appreciate the power of excel WITHOUT using Visual Basic! The use of iterative calculation is genius, and the way you route everything together is truly splendid. Wonderful video, I'd love to see more videos elaborating on all these cool ways to utilize the functions!

@InkboxSoftware 3 ай бұрын

I was so disappointed seeing other Excel videos just write Basic programs, I had to undo an injustice.

@brandonechols 3 ай бұрын

@@InkboxSoftware EXACTLY! 😄

@oneito947 3 ай бұрын

Wow

@flameofthephoenix8395 3 ай бұрын

@@InkboxSoftware I personally would have just wrote nothing but VBA except for rendering the screen which is benefitted by =MAKEARRAY since VBA is not nearly quick enough to handle all those cells. Though, I do understand the challenge aspect, but when I did challenge myself to use almost exclusively formulas except for the one function making sure the player didn't have to manually hold F9, it was pretty boring even after I had completed it, it just wasn't very fun for me, but to each their own!

@crysiank 3 ай бұрын

Dude. That was pretty cool. But the most important question: CAN. IT. RUN. DOOM?

@absolutetruth9975 3 ай бұрын

Theres a guy on youtube who sees if every device can run doom. Somebody needs to tell him about this.

@Anzeljaeg 3 ай бұрын

Sad ... Kinda cant in this condition, they need to finish the CMD, but as he say ... In theory, yes we can ... Just couple of more steps

@jamieevans5979 3 ай бұрын

Not without rewriting Doom itself. It was designed for 32-bit systems, and in this video, a very limited instruction set is used. It would not be possible to capture and react to keyboard input from an Excel spreadsheet simply with formula either. Would be cool though.

@Akira-Aerins 3 ай бұрын

@@jamieevans5979but can it ***fake*** running DOOM?

@jamieevans5979 3 ай бұрын

@@Akira-Aerins Sure. Just use a screen recorder and embed the video on the spreadsheet 😆

@balkinavian 3 ай бұрын

Wow! This is insane! Fantastic work

@ChuckLennon 2 ай бұрын

That was one hell of a ride ! My gosh ! I am fond of PCs inner working, but wow ! The complex parts are so well-made ! And the concept is just mind-blowing ! Very good video :D

@youtubegoogle4163 3 ай бұрын

This is absolutely beautiful. I am an Electronics Engineer, and am good with excel also. I still can't imagine how much of time and patience it takes to do this... Keep up the great work brother ❤ You deserve my subscription ❤

@martinkunev9911 3 ай бұрын

That seems like a very good project if you're learning about computer architectures. You didn't write a compiler, you wrote an assembler :)

@robertnowak9473 2 ай бұрын

I work in IT and I've seen some cool things done in Excel. But this is unbelievable. You have a remarkable skill set. Wish you the best of luck in succeeding and achieving your dreams.

@ErixSamson 3 ай бұрын

Absolutely insane. I love it. It should be shown at the begining of any computer / software course.

@modlich_303 3 ай бұрын

It's funny how as a programmer, my family assumes i know that kind of stuff. Like, no, you don't need to know the inner workings of something to use it, most people don't know how the keyboard works, yet they can use it to write

@MagicThanos7 3 ай бұрын

would be better for you if you did though

@mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm56 3 ай бұрын

Front-end dev spotted

@modlich_303 3 ай бұрын

@@mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm56 I make games and other programs, i don't make computers 🙃

@ragnarok7976 3 ай бұрын

If black boxes always worked exactly as you intend them too then I'd agree... But they don't and while I wouldn't recommend just opening everyone you find for the sake of it, it really does help to have some experience cracking a few cases because you will need to at some point. I'd hazard to guess this attitude is one reason why most modern software is horribly optimized and tends to be a nasty soup of cobbled together packages. Sure that might be a simple and blissful way to do things but ignorance will never produce something of higher quality than true understanding. Not to mention it doesn't pass the "what if everybody did it" test because at some point somebody needs to be able to create and service black boxes or the consumers will have nothing to stitch together.

@ammo2222 3 ай бұрын

Im just a PLC Technician not a Programmer, but how a CPU Works was literally the first Thing i learned. The First Code we wrote Was i Assembly, if you Understand how the Basics work, you can build on that

@harmoen 3 ай бұрын

As an Excel nerd this is insane and I want to see more

@yakyakgaming1027 3 ай бұрын

Awesome! Congratulations on your work

@RafaelAcurcio 3 ай бұрын

Very very impressive. Thanks for sharing all the files

@xhec 3 ай бұрын

there are so many people that have crazy titles like this and then just use shortcuts and produce a simplified result then. but you, you stayed true, used no shit, made an interesting video and even explained well what you're doing. keep on doing this, you earned my sub

@tomcat.c 3 ай бұрын

I’m actively working on a full 3d cube renderer in excel and this has inspired me

@xdasdaasdasd4787 3 ай бұрын

Video when

@tomcat.c 3 ай бұрын

@@xdasdaasdasd4787 im not all that good at making videos but i will maybe upload one once i finish

@highcolor_sunz 3 ай бұрын

Show us when it's done

@terrytibbs951 3 ай бұрын

Already been done use google

@JohnDanielParkerJr 3 ай бұрын

This is super cool! Well done, and thank you for sharing!

@petermccaffrey 3 ай бұрын

This is insane. I could never build this myself, but I understand it enough to understand just how bonkers what you’ve done is. Bravo! 🤯

@FireFox2313-di6bk 3 ай бұрын

0:30 the “me at the zoo” video was a nice touch

@vasiovasio 3 ай бұрын

The Begining! :)

@NICK.... 3 ай бұрын

all thats left now is coding DOS in excel with this CPU and then running excel in that DOS

@killpidone 3 ай бұрын

For irony, it would have to be lotus 1-2-3

@NICK.... 3 ай бұрын

@@killpidone that would be incredible

@alihms 3 ай бұрын

For pure "Microsoft-verse", it should be DOS and Excel. But just to annoy Microsoft, the operating system should be IBM OS/2 and the spreadsheet Lotus 123.

@PeterJnicol 3 ай бұрын

@@killpidone DOS is not done til Lotus won't run.

@Plarndude 3 ай бұрын

I love spreadsheets! This is brilliant!

@Uatemydoodle 2 ай бұрын

You are insane. I can't even begin to comprehend the genius required for this.