Author:

• Name: Michael Birken
  Location: US - United States of America (United States)

To build:

    make

Bugs and (Mis)features:

The current status of this entry is:

STATUS: uses gets() - change to fgets() if possible

For more detailed information see 2006/birken in bugs.html.

To use:

    ./birken < file.tofu

Try:

    ./try.sh

Judges’ remarks:

Q: EDAMAME?

A: Electronic Design Automation - Mechanical Abstract Machine Emulator

What is TOFU? It’s not a veggie friendly food, nor it is Verilog or VHDL It is not even Pascal!

NOTE: On some systems, file(1) claims one of the .tofu files is Pascal source. :-)

It may not be the most readable hardware description language, but it is one of the easiest 55 page long manuals to learn. :-)

For a small but non-trivial design, try implementing a Linear Feedback Shift Register

And for those who are still confused, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edamame and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu.

Author’s remarks:

If man is capable of creating tofu hot dogs (simulated meat), then why not tofu circuitry (simulated circuits)? This program is my tribute to the early computer pioneers like Konrad Zuse. It’s an educational tool designed to introduce students to digital circuit theory using technology that was considered state of the art in the 1940s! To enable you to fully understand the capabilities of this circuit simulator, I have included a 55 page manual, info.pdf, in the info portion of the entry submission.

The primary obfuscation is the data structure chosen for parsing the input file and for executing the simulation. Oh man… coding that data structure gave me such a bad headache. But, I figure, who needs more than a pair anyway? Subtle obfuscations abound. Bonus points go out to the one who discovers the hidden program within the source.

Note that the shape of the source is a wave, not a waveform.

Primary files

• birken.c - entry source code
• Makefile - entry Makefile
• birken.orig.c - original source code
• info.pdf - about the TOFO circuit simulator
• try.sh - script to try entry
• adder.tofu - TOFU circuit
• buffer.tofu - TOFU circuit
• computer.tofu - TOFU circuit
• counter.tofu - TOFU circuit
• divider.tofu - TOFU circuit
• lfsr.tofu - TOFU circuit
• memory.tofu - TOFU circuit
• multiplier2.tofu - TOFU circuit
• multiplier.tofu - TOFU circuit
• oneline.tofu - TOFU circuit
• shift.tofu - TOFU circuit
• zuse2.tofu - TOFU circuit
• zuse.tofu - TOFU circuit

Secondary files

• 2006_birken.tar.bz2 - download entry tarball
• README.md - markdown source for this web page
• .entry.json - entry summary and manifest in JSON
• .gitignore - list of files that should not be committed under git
• .path - directory path from top level directory
• index.html - this web page

Jump to: top