Show HN: A game where you build a GPU

nottorp

În a few years it will be the only way to explain the kids what a GPU is. Unless you work for an “AI” shop and sneak them into the data center.

arikrahman

Awesome project! Reminds me of Turing Complete on Steam.

SilentM68

This is very cool! We need more games like this so that the younger population get some sort of exposure to the hardware side of things, before AI takes over that field. I would also think that take-home electronic and soldering kits for adults and younger folks would be another way to reduce dependance on AI.

agrishin

Great project! I somehow missed whole cpu architecture topic, so gonna catch up on that now

buildbot

This would be such a good game for introducing students to digital technology! This is so fun! We just had to draw them by hand back in the dark ages of the 2010s.

Falell

Fun. 2.2 loads a blank screen for me, all previous levels were fine and 2.3 loads. Windows, Firefox 149. Edit: Confirmed fixed.

schlecht_

Love it, thanks! Would you mind making it possible for me to see my "circuit" after running the tests? Currently, I can't go back to the circuit I created.

npinsker

Great game! For learning, might be nice to see some commentary or example (model) solutions after beating a level.

Anonyneko

This looks really cool, although I personally seem to lack the absolute basic knowledge that is required to make sense of the tutorial messages, so I couldn't even figure out the first level.

Ginop

It's always nice to see educational games like that. A lot of new learners (like me) are just looking at the high level stuff, where the computer "just works"... Well done and keep it up :)

john_strinlai

as a learning resource, it would be great it acronyms were expanded at least once. nmos, pmos, gnd, vdd all in the first 5 seconds or so, and i didnt see anywhere that actually said what those stood for otherwise, looks polished and fills in a nice niche!

tithos

Cool concept, but it should be mobile friendly

skyskys

wow looks really cool, although seems kinda useless at first look.

treelover

I like the concept! What tools did you use to build it?

fleshers

This is awesome! The truth table lightning round took me by surprise, I am rustier than I thought... One note: It isn't immediately obvious that the In/Out nodes can be connected to multiple wires, made the first few rounds harder to work thru.

rustybolt

This is great! Some comments: - I didn't like the "truth tables" one, I got many duplicate questions and for some reason I got only one second for the first question. The rest of the questions I managed to answer correctly but I still got only one start out of three? - I got very confused by the capacitor. Capacitors do not have an "enable" gate! In fact, in 2.7 (1T1C) you are supposed to build the enable gate -- with a transistor. So currently, you can just simply not build the enable gate and use the one already in the primitive, meaning you don't need the NMOS gate at all. Was this made using LLM-assistence? (Not judging, I'm just interested!) I'd love to hear more about your workflow and how you managed to produce a good UI as it's something I couldn't do if my life depended on it, and it's a skill I'd like to learn.

jmholla

The continue buttons in intro break for me all the time on Firefox. I can't actually finish most of them.

roadbuster

I worked on deep sub-micron, full custom mixed-signal integrated circuits for more than a decade, and I can't pass the first level. > Wire an NMOS transistor so that when In is 1, the output is pulled to ground (0). When In is 0, the output should be unconnected (Z). Certainly: (a) The nMOS has 3 connections: its drain is only connected to the output (no +Vdd supply), it's source is tied to ground, it's gate is tied to the signal input (b) When the gate (input) is driven high, the nMOS transistor turns "on," connecting the output to the source (which is grounded). This acts as a "pull-down network" (c) When the gate is driven low, the nMOS turns "off," leaving no connection to the output. This is equivalent to a "high-impedance" / "unconnected" / "Z" output Fails 1/2 tests (Edit) - I thought the light grey, thick line on the background grid was a wire from "input" to the transistor's gate. It is not. You need to explicitly add a wire from "input" to gate :\

zapkyeskrill

Any easy way to make this usable on mobile? In portrait mode things are unreadable, zoom and scrolling do not work. Landscape is even worse as everything is out of view (and zoom/scroll do not work).

testaccount28

not playing past the truth tables bs