Re: Totally brilliant, but not exactly "transistor by transistor"
All the logic that does computation is done transistor by transistor.
The only place that LSI has been used is on the 7-segment display boards - apparently it was too complex decoding hex (octal?) digits to a 7-segment display in transistors for something that is there 'for debugging purposes'. To quote Newman...
"I spent a bit of time trying to work out how to do the 7-segment display using discrete transistors but the answer is vast. Really, really big. It would have near doubled the size of the thing and the circuitry for the display would have obscured the circuitry for the processor which would have undermined what I was trying to do. As its only for debug and not proper function I went for chips. This is definitely NOT cheating, it is just for debug. It is irritating though."
Biting the hand that feeds IT
