- Author
- Not stated
- Published
- 19 December 2025
- Kind
- Personal technical write-up of two hardware demos, with Verilog and Python code
- Original
- www.a1k0n.net/2025/12/19/tiny-tapeout-demo.html
- Subject
- Systems and hardware
- Themes
- Small means, Art through code, Close to the machine
What it is
The author explains two entries to Tiny Tapeout 8. The site is a1k0n.net, and no name appears. Entries output VGA video and 1-bit audio from a small chip. The post covers design choices, mistakes and how the chips were finally made.
What it says
- The post says each entry gets about 4000 logic gates, with no ROM or RAM.
- It says flip-flops are large, so the intro was trimmed to 293 of them.
- It says data costs less gate area when it repeats in power-of-two patterns.
- It says the 3D checkerboard avoids per-pixel math by dividing once per scanline.
- It says the sine scroller rotates a vector each clock cycle, not a sine table.
- It says the music is a logic chain from a song counter.
- It says the chips were stranded when Efabless shut down in March 2025. They later arrived working.
What evidence it gives
The post shows Verilog excerpts, Python prototypes and song data tables. It gives cell and flip-flop counts. It reports that the made chips ran the designs. The donut needs 45MHz in place of 48MHz.
Interests and limits
The author is the designer and describes their own work. No timing or area comparisons with other entries are given. The author names regrets, such as the video mode and the unsynced audio clock. The video clips could not be viewed, so only the written text was read.
Connections
These links are this wiki's own reading, not claims the sources make.
- ZX Spectrum: Experimenting With 1-Bit Sound. Both ask what music costs at the very bottom. In one, the song is a chain of logic from a counter. In the other, three voices take turns on a single bit. Neither stores a recording of what you hear.
- Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history. Both records are shaped by what got removed. The plan Ueda describes fell from 48 colossi to 16. The chip intro was trimmed to 293 flip-flops. Here the limit is not an obstacle to the design, but part of its history.