Minecraft HDL, an HDL for Redstone

(github.com)

94 points | by sleepingreset 5 hours ago

11 comments

  • Arch-TK 2 hours ago
    This is an amazing timeline. I still remember the day redstone was added to Minecraft. I spent the entire evening and many days afterwards on the forum brainstorming how to implement various things. I think I had one of the first if not the first T flip flop, it "took an entire room" and was slow. It has been crazy watching things get compacted, repeaters getting added, pistons, comparators. I remember when BUDs got discovered and then eventually just added as a block.

    Now* we have an entire HDL.

    I honestly stopped keeping track of things around 2012 so I am completely lost looking at modern redstone contraptions.

    *8 years ago

    • Dylan16807 1 hour ago
      This is a cool tool but compared to modern redstone contraptions this is a sidegrade, not an upgrade. It's straightforward torch and dust logic, with each torch being a nor gate and dust being wires. And it doesn't consider timing at all. This could have been made the week redstone was added (with minor adjustments to not have repeaters), and it wouldn't have taken any newer insights.
  • dang 4 hours ago
    Related:

    Verilog to Minecraft Redstone Synthesizer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25195802 - Nov 2020 (12 comments)

    (Reposts are fine after a year or so! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

  • verdverm 44 minutes ago
    I wonder if this takes account of any of the quirks or quasi-connectivity in redstone?

    Mumbo Jumbo recently got a lesson in, and made a video about, computational redstone. Some seriously impressive builds in there (like ms paint). One of the major design constraints is tick/lag. The recent addition of copper bulbs turned the t-flipflop into a single block solution

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTZaUz8bYW8

  • eirikbakke 1 hour ago
    In case anyone needs a minimal CPU implementation in 65 lines of Verilog: https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/fic/ https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/fic/code/Fic.v

    (I wonder if it would convert cleanly to a redstone circuit...)

    • lpribis 1 hour ago
      This compiler does not support sequential logic, meaning no flip flops/registers.
  • paulwetzel 4 hours ago
    Super cool project :) Just the right level of, objectively useless - but really fun!
  • 8note 3 hours ago
    Optimizing passes for this would be interesting.

    Describing a flip flop as a villager minecart with some number of NaN minecarts beside it seems challenging to pick when to use it vs a copper bulb.

  • gatane 3 hours ago
    Amazing project!!
  • throwaway290 3 hours ago
    Minecraft circuits can't have feedback? That's pretty sad:(
    • melncat 3 hours ago
      They can. It's just that this specific program is not capable of translating it.
  • sodikidos 2 hours ago
    [dead]
  • Sweepi 2 hours ago
    > A 2-bit 7-segment display decoder in action (the display itself was not generated by MinecraftHDL)

    Lame!(/s) I did this vanilla Minecraft(1.12?), including the display itself.

  • lesser-shadow 3 hours ago
    [dead]