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Show HN: BOOLR, a digital logic simulator

78 points by GGBRW ↗ HN
I am a Dutch high school student and last year I had to do a large project of my own choice. Together with two other guys I decided to do a project about digital logic. We had an ambitious plan: building an 8-bits computer.

At that time I started learning programming and I already knew some HTML and CSS. So we decided to not build a physical computer, but one running in a self-built simulator. I was going to build the simulator, the other guys took care of the computer. I was hard, our school hadn't taught us anything about computers and programming so we had to learn everything ourselves. Our mentor told us our project was impossible to do, but we didn't listen and we worked hard.

After a year we did it, I have built the simulator, called BOOLR, and the other guys have built the 8-bits computer, called Tineke. Our mentor was really impressed, we got a 10/10 grade.

I've created BOOLR with JavaScript and Electron, the UI with HTML & CSS.

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About & Download website: http://boolr.me, feel free to download it and play around with it, it has a tutorial mode to show how everything works.

On Github: https://github.com/ggbrw/boolr, I'm new to programming so don't blame me for the ugly and messy code. Next year I am going to study computer science so I hope to learn more about organizing and optimizing my code, but I am really proud of the result.

11 comments

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Faaak
Always wanted to do that. Very nice project and UI; congrats !
nickynickell
Pretty slick for what I'm assuming is your first big project.

Tangentially related: do you think your mentor might have been indirectly encouraging you by telling you it was impossible? I've been on both ends of that trick and have seen mixed results. Any mentors here who have done something similar? How did it go?

malux85
I do this with some of the students I mentor, but it must depend on the students personality.

A rebellious student will be challenged by being told they're not allowed to do something.

A prideful or intellectually vain student will be stirred to action by being told something is impossible.

A timid student can be stirred into action by telling them you see greatness in them.

But you really have to get to know them before you decide which method to apply in a subtle matter, as an incorrect choice will be deleterious

bollockitis
This is amazing work! While watching the video, my jaw dropped when you selected "componetize." I'm looking forward to playing with this.
m-j-fox
Nice work! You know EDA is big business and for some reason their UI uniformly sucks. You should talk to Cadence about doing the front end for all their tools. You'd make millions and more importantly end an epoch of suffering.
rendall
Congratulations! It looks great!
deferredposts
Awesome project! I know we don't like to take credit here in the Netherlands, but you should certainly add a small bio of the team members. Take pride in your work ;)

I read that you plan to study CS next year. If you are going to the TU Delft, send me a PM. I can introduce you to a couple of professors and their research groups.

GGBRW
Thank you! I am actually going to TU Delft next year :) Would be really awesome if you could introduce me! How can I PM you in here?
aroberge
This is absolutely brilliant! After looking at the demo video, I'm at a loss for words to describe how fantastic the user interface looks and how easy it appears to build components. I'll definitely have to find time to play with it.

One small suggestion: think of a student who only has access to the code on github and would like to create their own version to see how it works. (Perhaps, for some reason, the site boolr.me has been taken down.) Can you think of simple steps to write to your README file so that this student could get started?

jpl56
Very nice! I just finished "Circuit scramble" on Android and will be able to create my own diabolical levels ;)
smanatstpete
Beautiful piece of software. UI is simple and intuitive. You guys will go places.