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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to WIP NandToTetris Emulator in pure C – logic gates to ALU to CPU to PC

* OPEN TO CONTRIBUTIONS * NandToTetris is a course which has you build a full computer from: Logic gates -> Chips -> RAM -> CPU -> Computer -> Assembler -> Compiler -> OS -> Tetris All this is done via software defined hardware emulation. I'm building an emulator for this entire stack in C. How is my approach different to other projects that build emulators? - No external dependencies (so far) - Start with a single software defined NAND gate in C - EVERYTHING is built from this base chip - Don't use certain programming utilities: boolean logic operators, bitwise logic operators etc Instead…

This is a pure C emulator project for the Nand2Tetris course that builds a complete computer system from basic logic gates upward. Starting with a single software-defined NAND gate, the project constructs… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. WIP NandToTetris Emulator in pure C – logic gates to ALU to CPU to PC launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    I am proud to present my solo hobby project NAND. This year-long undertaking follows the completed Nand to Tetris course, but ported to the web with its own runtime, user interface, and IDE. Using the "Load example program" selector, you can try out some programs I wrote on NAND's emulated hardware such as 2048, a genetic algorithm, and a manual stack overflow to corrupt the screen. Check out NAND at https://nand.arhan.sh Additionally, I've authored an extensive writeup about the project. Read about it on the GitHub repository's readme.

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    A simulated CPU built using only NAND gates. Contribute to IsaacLewis/NAND-CPU development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2011 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    An OpenGL RTS game engine written in C. Contribute to eduard-permyakov/permafrost-engine development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Using SQL's Turing Completeness to Build Tetris. Contribute to nuno-faria/tetris-sql development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Run KolibriOS, Linux or Windows 98 in your browser

    2013 · copy.sh · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    A multitasking monolithic Kernel based x86 targeting Operating System written in C# from scratch aiming for high-level implementation of drivers in managed environment. - amaneureka/AtomOS

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    Hi! me and my friends together built an 8 bit CPU implemented in Logisim purely from scratch. The control unit of this system does not implement the generic microcode ROM or any kind of RAM. This was made purely from discrete logic gates and coded the system to run different programs. key features: Custom 16-instruction Harvard ISA, 8-bit fixed format, 4 general purpose registers Hardwired control unit built entirely from AND/OR gate logic matrix Dual-phase clocking to eliminate race conditions Bootstrap Control Unit that cold-boots via ROM-to-RAM transfer Early-exit conditional…

    Jun 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8TI
  9. 9

    Yet another 6502 emulator that one day dreams of being an Atari 2600. - haldean/x6502

    2013 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    A Forth CPU and System on a Chip, based on the J1, written in VHDL - howerj/forth-cpu

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    The core question: how did HP's scientific calculators actually work at the gate level? That rabbit hole led to building one from scratch. The architectural decision everything else follows from: a decimal calculator should store numbers as BCD — one decimal digit per 4-bit nibble. A standard byte-oriented CPU (Z80, 6502) fights that layout constantly. So I designed a small custom CPU in Verilog where 4 bits is the natural data width and memory is nibble addressable. What the project covers: - Custom CPU: Harvard architecture, 12-bit ISA, 8-state execution FSM, hardware stack guard with a…

    May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12H1

    This is a 16bit CPU+Minicomputer from pure 74 series logic. It has user/kernel modes, virtual memory, prioritized IRQ's and DMA. It has a full C compiler and a unix-like OS. It's still in development.

    2023 · sol-1.org · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    A Flipper Zero clone, but cheapest, DIY and simply Open Source, made with Arduino IDE - lraton/FlopperZiro

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    I built ChipBuilder to make computer architecture more approachable through interactive puzzles. You start with basic logic gates like AND, OR, and NOT, then gradually combine them into adders, multiplexers, memory, an ALU, and eventually a complete CPU. Once you've built the hardware, you can write assembly programs that run on the processor you created. The game is inspired by courses like Nand2Tetris, but everything runs directly in the browser with a visual circuit editor, simulations, and progressively harder challenges.

    Jul 2026 · select.supply · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    First Release is Here! I'm excited to announce the first release of i486SX_soft_FPU — a software FPU emulator for the classic Intel 486SX CPU, running on NetBSD 10! This project brings floating-point support back to life for 486SX machines, even though modern NetBSD versions no longer natively support processors without a hardware FPU. If you're into retrocomputing, operating system hacking, or just love old-school hardware, check it out! Project page: https://github.com/mezantrop/i486SX_soft_FPU Contributions, feedback, and testing are all very welcome! Let's keep these…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Programming language that compiles into a x86 ELF executable. - riicchhaarrd/ocean

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Hi! I've been working on the flipjump project, a programming language with 1 opcode: flip (invert) a bit, then jump (unconditionally). So a bit-flip followed by more bit-flips. It's effectively a bunch of NOT gates. This language, as poor as it sounds, is RICH. Today I completed my compiler from C to FlipJump. It takes C files, and compiles them into flipjump. I finished testing it all today, and it works! My key interest in this project is to stretch what we know of computing and to prove that anything can be done even with minimal power. I appreciate you reading my announcement, and be…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    An educational puzzle game. Solve a series of tasks where you build increasingly powerful components. Starts with the simplest logical components and ends up with a programmable computer.

    2018 · nandgame.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19IG
  20. 20MP

    I have been working on this game somewhat sparsely for the past three years or so. However, it is still in a very early stage, and there is a lot of work to do. One of my friends encouraged me to post about it here, since he felt people might find interesting how I don’t use any libraries for it. The game can be played on a browser by virtue of WebAssembly. There are native ports using either MiniFB or SDL2, but you have to build those yourself. I decided to write the game in C because I feel like it is a simple language that a lot of people can understand well enough, and I didn’t think I…

    2023 · zamfofex.neocities.org · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    A simple way to write standalone C programs for i386 - luke8086/boot2c

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    To try it out, simply build the project yourself from source, or use attached bootable ISO image of the system (in Releases on Github) and run it in QEMU. https://blog.vxn.dev/rou2exos-rusted-edition

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    I've been exploring new ways of testing Ghidra processor modules. In this repo, I was able to emulate NES ROMs in Ghidra to test its 6502 specification, which resulted in finding and fixing some bugs. Context: Ghidra is used for reverse engineering binary executables, complementing the usual disassembly view with function decompilation. Each supported architecture has a SLEIGH specification, which provides semantics for parsing and emulating instructions, not unlike the dispatch handlers you would find in interpreters written for console emulators. Emulator devs have long had extensive test…

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    A while back I wrote a CHIP-8 emulator (which is considered the Hello, World! of emulators and is more accurately a virtual machine since historically CHIP-8 was an interpreted language running on top of the COSMAC VIP to make game programming easier). But a few months ago I got really interested in embedded software, so decided it would be neat to port my emulator to a STM32 MCU and design a console around it as a learning experience, since CHIP-8 never existed as a physical system. I didn't know much about embedded software when I began, and even less about electronics, but I managed to…

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

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