Introduction

This is the third kit of the Hardware Basics series. In it the circuit draws on a 64 × 64 screen by itself — no processor and no program, just logic. At the end, three screens side by side: the Sierpinski triangle from a ten-gate rule, the same triangle grown from random dots, and the living Munching Squares pattern from 1962.

The kit is standalone and free. Inside:

• memory — the latch and the D flip-flop: the circuit remembers what happened;
• a counter — six flip-flops count to 63;
• the raster scan — two counters visit all 4096 dots of the screen, like the beam of a TV;
• a fractal — the Sierpinski triangle: (x AND y) = 0;
• chance — the LFSR generator and the chaos game;
• animation — a frame counter and a comparison (bonus).

The finished machine is 3,064 transistors.

What you get

Lesson 0 is gates from transistors, optional. Then six lessons: memory → counter → raster scan → the Sierpinski triangle → the chaos game → bonus Munching Squares. The sequel is the "Worlds of Mandelbrot and Julia" kit: on the same raster scan the circuit computes with fractions and draws the most famous fractals.