Discussion

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: Exactly :(

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.

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.

Jaso1024: Thx, way better (imo) than just reading slides or (god forbid) pure text describing comp arch

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

Jaso1024: Yeah, fortunately I made cpu arch part of the game, so it'll serve great for that aswell

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

Jaso1024: Yeah, I've actually been planning to add this in, might have gemini look at your circuit config and give its opinion, alongside dynamic hints

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.

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

Jaso1024: Fixed! If you go to the level and refresh (might need to hard refresh: Ctrl + Shift + R) it should load properly now

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.

Jaso1024: Sure, you should be able to rn though, is this after completing the level (wanna fix this bug)?

schlecht_: Sure, but I can't seem to find the git?

Jaso1024: I haven't pushed to github (Will do this soon), but I believe that i've fixed the issue (also, by wanna fix this bug I meant I want to fix this bug, (but would def also appreciate help if ur interested, the mechanics of this game ended up being a bit more complex than I initially envisioned lol))

schlecht_: No problem. I am currently on the third level I think and my laptop fan ramps up, so I closed the tab and it stopped. Also, how can I delete e.g. transistors again?

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

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 forotherwise, looks polished and fills in a nice niche!

II2II: There's the info boxes that it could be added to, that way it is always available at a mouse click.That said, I'm not sure how useful expanding most of the acronyms would be. Names like Negative/Positive Metal Oxide Semiconductor aren't exactly self-explanatory, Vdd isn't really an acronym, etc..

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.

Jaso1024: I see, thx, ill add a note in the game to make it more clear

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: - The nMOS has 3 connections: its drain is left floating, it's source is tied to ground, and it's gate is tied to the signal input- 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"- 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" outputFails 1/2 tests

Jaso1024: stack was mainly vite (react) + typescript pretty much (canvas 2d for the visuals)

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

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.

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).

Jaso1024: Yeah, i'm planning to make it mobile compatible in the coming day(s), i didn't plan for this to be mobile originally, so it kind of sucks on phone

txr: Anyone who likes this should also take a look at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1444480/Turing_Complete/ At the end you have your own CPU with your own assembly language. Sadly stuck in early access since forever with some very rough edges

battxbox: Love this game. Does anyone know if developers are still active?

Jaso1024: Oh, I didn't notice this capacitor bug, I changed it to add an enable gate for 2.4 (for context, i created 2.4 after 2.7 b/c i thought 2.7 wasn't obvious enough for some ppl). 2.4 kind of needs the enable pin b/c of how my simulation system works. Yeah, I felt pretty conflicted on the capacitors whilst building, theres actually a note about this in the capacitor info block in later levels, but I couldn't really make a true capacitor compatible with the underlying simulation system I had built (I should have thought it through from the start).Ill fix the truth tables bug (i think i know the issue), the stars come from playing in endless modeI used claude quite a bit, it struggled through a lot of this (wiring and simulation systems in particular), but managed to crank this out, for the graphics i was extremely detailed in terms of what i wanted i'd say

tuetuopay: Since we're in feedback mode, 2.16 has no BitLineBar reference to feed to the comparators. I had to cheese level by connecting the "capacitor" outputs straight to the outputs, and it worked.On the capacitor though, the capacitor level is weird as you don't build the capacitor charge system with transistors. Though I definitely get that the simulation engine is for digital stuff, not analog :)Also a general feedback on the time-based challenges: dial them back. A lot. Most of them are just not interesting and have zero learning value. In fact, the "DRAM refresh" one just made me quit the game (clicking on 8 rows to keep them fresh). Okay, 10s is enough, I got the point. No need to hold up for a whole minute. Kinda same for the hex one. However, some of them are good, and the UI for the binary ones is great, especially for the two's complement one!Small nitpick on the UI: some blocks don't have their connections aligned with the grid, making the wiring OCD-incompatible. But that's minor.Otherwise, quite a fun little game, if slow paced when one already knows some bits of digital logic.

aritzdf: PWAs have matured a lot — the gap with native apps is much smaller than people think, especially on Android where install prompts work reliably. One thing I appreciate about browser-based games specifically is that they sidestep the distribution problem entirely.

aritzdf: Launching on Product Hunt is useful for a burst of early feedback, but the retention from PH users is usually low — they're browsers, not committed users. Better to get 10 people who really need the thing than 500 upvotes.

Jaso1024: i didn't launch on product hunt

mistidoi: I'm a total doofus with no relevant experience and neither could I.

Damjanski: wow - will try it today!

fragmede: Remindse of http://nandgame.com and https://nand2tetris.org

frmersdog: You need to have a, "Okay, I've tried 10 times, it's not working, what's the answer?" button. That will help not just us rubes who can't understand, but also in the off chance something is broken and even "correct" answers are being rejected.

Jaso1024: makes sense, adding to the next push (in the interim, u can also use the copy circuit button to ask gpt if ur correct or not), also, what level is this? (if u dont mind me asking)

himmelsee2018: This is a brilliant way to visualize complex hardware architecture. As someone working on web-based image processing having a deeper mental model of how the underlying hardware handles these tasks is incredibly helpful. Truly a learn-by-doing masterpiece.

NooneAtAll3: if you solve a level, then press "next level", then solve that next level - then it still shows the original level (I think it just gets hidden below the new one and then reappears after a solve?)

NooneAtAll3: how do I remove/delete elements?

Jaso1024: click and press delete, realizing this wasn't obvious, a fix to add a similar delete mechanism to how wires are deleted is coming

Jaso1024: Hi everyone, commenting to address feedback:- Made timed minigames optional (e.g. binary tables)- Added 7 (optional) intro levels to walk through pmos and nmos transistors- Fixed the bug in the capacitor levels- Changed editor bg to use dots instead of lines to fix wire confusion

sarvagyavaish: Oh that's what the "copy circuit" button does. I have been trying to paste circuits from previous levels into subsequent ones and wondering what I was doing wrong

Jaso1024: truth tables round is optional now!

testaccount28: not playing past the truth tables bs

Jaso1024: optional now!

NooneAtAll3: truth table minigame is lmost unplayable in dark modealso it kept showing the same table to me like 4 times

Jaso1024: fixed!

anderskaseorg: The “next level” button takes you to the next level even if you haven’t solved that level’s prerequisites.

Jaso1024: Thanks for telling me, just pushed a fix

PunchyHamster: ...why capacitor has 3 pins ?

sheiyei: Layout appears unusable on my phone on Firefox Android (both portrait and landscape). Necessary elements seem to get hidden behind others. Not sure if I'm even supposed to be able to play it without kB&m though lol :)

joha4270: So, is there anything about GPU's in here right now?I didn't actually finish Act 2, but it seems to end in a conventional processor with the GPU first coming after another two acts currently under construction.

Jaso1024: Yeah, I had added it to make it compatible w/ my simulation system, just changed how I was handling the levels altogether, if it still has 3 try doing a hard refresh (Ctrl + Shift + R on windows, cmd + shift + R on macos)

baobabKoodaa: Is this a sequel to "How to make a CPU"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuvckBQ1bME

Jaso1024: lol, I hadn't seen that video before but its a good one. Na, this is the guide to comp arch that will (hopefully) end all instances of toil over documentation for any sort of processor when learning

xnzakg: The 2.13 level ("hex racer") is kind of pain. Apparently I'm not fast enough at dividing/multiplying by 16... when I get something like "convert 0xB3 to decimal"