Return to page listing

Spreadsheet Circuit Board - Adder Circuit

From Spreadsheet Circuit Boards

Computers work by rapidly processing electrical signals that represent number values. Most people only think of computers in at a very high-level of abstraction, little realizing the raw number crunching happening nearby. This project is an attempt to draw attention to that number crunching.

Essentially, a computer switches two values three different ways . . . over and over and over. A processor contains myriads of switches arranged to perform certain tasks. The simulation in this project is of a very simple adding circuit, using a combination of OR, AND, and NOT gates (per Boolean algebra).

Addition in a typical processor is much more complicated with this. There are bit flags to set (or unset), program instruction pointers to increment, and a host of other things that happen all at once, but the principals are still the same.

Downloads

Spreadsheet Circuit Board - Adder