nand2tetris

Working my way through the Nand to Tetris Course

• Download the latest nand2tetris.zip from the book website, and overwrite everything in the projects and tools directory.
• Remember to run chmod +X tools/*.sh if you're on *nix.

High level implementation notes

1. Projects 1-5 as is
2. Project 6 (Assembler) done in ruby with a port to Rust in progress
3. Project 7-8 (VM) done in PHP
4. Project 9 - Wrote a small 2 player Tic Tac Toe game. Plan to upgrade it to Ultimate Tic Tac Toe when I get time.
5. Project 10-11 - Writing the compiler in Python

Detailed notes documenting progress updates are in NOTES.md.

Project 1: Boolean Logic

Build order as per the website. Cost for each gate in NAND in brackets.

• Nand (primitive)
• Not (1)
• Or (3)
• Xor (6, Can be improved)
• And (2)
• Mux (8, Took me ages. Can be improved)
• DMux (5, Super Fun)
• Not16 (16)
• And16 (32)
• Or16 (48)
• Mux16 (113)
• Or8Way (21)
• Mux4Way16 (339)
• Mux8Way16 (791)
• DMux4Way (37, Fun)
• DMux8Way (101)

Project 2: Boolean Arithmetic

CHIPs/Gates used in brackets

• HalfAdder (Xor+And)
• FullAdder (2 HalfAdder, 1 Or)
• Add16 (1 HalfAdder, 15 FullAdder)
• Inc16 (1 Add16)
• ALU (6 Mux16, 3 Not16, 1 Add16, 1 And16, 2 Or8Way, 2 Or, 1 Not)

Project 3: Memory

Make sure you read through the Hardware Simulator Tutorial to understand the clock in the simulator.

• DFF (primitive)
• Bit (1 Mux, 1DFF)
• Register (16 Bits)
• RAM8 (8 Registers, 1 DMux8Way, 1 Mux8Way16) = 8 registers
• RAM64 (8 RAM8, 1 DMux8Way, 1 Mux8Way16) = 64 registers
• RAM512 (8 RAM64, 1 DMux8Way, 1 Mux8Way16) = 512 registers
• RAM4K (8 RAM512, 1 DMux8Way, 1 Mux8Way16) = 4096 registers
• RAM16K (4 RAM4K, 1 DMux4Way, 1 Mux4Way16) = 16384 registers
• PC (1 Register, 1 Inc16, 1 Or8Way, 1 Mux8Way16)

Project 4: Machine Language Programming

Counting number of instructions by wc -l $file.hack

• Mult (18)
• Fill (98)

Project 5: Computer Architecture

Chips

• Memory.hdl (2xMux16, 2xNot, 3xAnd 1 RAM16K)
• CPU.hdl (6 And, 2 Nand, 3 Or, 1 Not, 1 Mux16, 1 Mux16, 2 Register, 1 PC, 1 ALU)
• Computer.hdl (1 CPU, 1 ROM32K, 1 Memory)

Computer chip tests:

• Add.hack
• Max.hack
• Rect.hack

Project 6: The Assembler

Without Symbols

• MaxL.asm
• RectL.asm
• PongL.asm
• Add.asm

Symbolic Programs

• Max.asm
• Rect.asm
• Pong.asm

Project 7: Virtual Machine I - Stack Arithmetic

Final hack instruction set count in brackets. Calculated by running:

php file.vm > file.asm
ruby assembler.rb file.vm > file.hack
wc -l file.hack

Arithmetic Commands

• SimpleAdd.vm (21)
• StackTest.vm (334)

Memory Access Commands

• BasicTest.vm (228)
• PointerTest.vm (127)
• StackTest.vm (73)

Project 8: Virtual Machine II - Program Control

Final hack instruction set count in brackets as before.

Program Flow Commands

• BasicLoop.vm (93)
• Fibonacci.vm (193)

Function Calling Commands

• SimpleFunction.vm (128)
• FibonacciElement (434)
• NestedCall.vm (556)
• StaticsTest.vm (664)

Project 9: High-Level Programming

• TicTacToe

Project 10: Compiler I - Syntax Analysis

Tokenizer

• Square
• TestArray

Parser (Compilation Engine)

• Square
• ExpressionLessSquare
• TestArray