-- AngelaTraficante - 30 Nov 2005

Status Register (finally)

The Status Register's primary (and, regretably) only job is to flag when all 8 inputs are zero. (When the mushroom hits the 'zero' wall is how I like to think of it.)

I've attached a picture of my pseudo-schematic, but basically, there are 8 inputs into a bunch of OR gates, with a NOT at the end of them, which determine whther any of them are on, and then, if the OR gates report that nothing is on, an LED lights up, saying, "Hey guys! I found a zero!"

The reason the NOT is there? If any of the values of A - H are on, they'll be allowed to pass through the OR gates. We don't want that, so we invert the output. So, if any of the inputs get through the OR gates, they are then NOTed, and the LED will not turn on, and the flag will not go up. Consequently, If nothing gets through the OR gates (all the inputs are zero), then the LED wouldn't turn on, right? Well, with the NOT gate there at the end, it will now!

This boolean value (on or off) then gets fed into a flip-flop that remembers it. (The flip-flop is not included in the picture.)

That's about all I have to tell for now. I'll update soon, I hope.

-- AngelaTraficante - 30 Nov 2005

UPDATE

The Status Register is DONE! It's sitting in our classroom, on one of those massive steel shelves in the corner. It's awaiting its turn to be hooked up to something.