Over the last few weeks I've been trying to come up with some ideas for a decent forth-year project. At the top of the list right now is asynchronous design and implementation. I know there are still a few months to think about this, but I've been doing a bit of research, and it looks like this may be a great topic to explore. So far some of the most useful information has been from Manchester (kudos to brejc8 et al.) and it seems like this may not only be practical for the land-my-sorry-ass-a-job factor, but also is genually interesting.

One thing I have found though is that the reference material is lacking at best. The only book in my uni's library on the subject just covers the basics which could be summerised in the introduction chapter of an in-depth text. Are there tools in existance specifically designed with asynchronous logic in mind? How do these tools compare to the tools available for general circuit design (which all seem to be at least focusing on synchronous circuits, if not designed excusivly for synchronous circuits)?

Regardless, this is an undergrad final project, not a doctorial thesis. I doubt I'll be synthesising the circuit (assuming I do complete the design as the project). Probably will end up doing it VHDL, though when I posted the question on "Ask Slashdot" a few folk recommended Verilog. I realise Verilog is not nessesarily synchronous, but it's C-like syntax makes it harder for me to focus on the actual on-chip transistor implementation, and therefore it presents itself in an almost synchronous (or at least sequential) manner.

Regardless, it should be fun. It looks like (from the information I've gathered) that the best style of implementation for the sake of "functional and simple" rather than "fast and complex" is to use a handshaking (dual-rail) implementation between registers and the control unit, and to base the instruction set around RISC-type instructions. The handshaking signals can be ANDed with the regisiter select of (for the sake of argument) let's say 5 bits = 32 regs to select the inputs/outputs to and from the bus, and non-selected registers could simply have the outputs of the registers set to high-impedance. The problem I'm having right now is toggleing the handshake-out line from regs... Project web site coming with several months, hopefully...

What happens when a market specific site has close to 100% of the market, and just keeps growing? The "almost-there-people" (who are not in the market, but think they are) visit the site, and consider themselves part of the site regulars.

I remember visisting Slashdot ages ago. It was almost all news, discussions about scientfic and technological innovations and the once niche "geek culture". I myself was overwelmed by the detail and knowledge with which /. readers posted, that I didn't dare post myself until I had almost finished my undergraduate degree. Now the first 50 posts to any given topic are trolls or newbies going for the +1 funny mod, and 50% of the articles selected by the editors are either "Boo MS" or "Boo commercialism/consumerism". Most of what can be said about these topics has either been said 200 times before, or is just re-iterating what was said in the original article post.

It's just as bad as the ranting in blogs (ok, don't point out the hippocracy in that last statment).

The irony of using Slashdot is that if you have questions, or want to make a technical observation, Slashdot is the only place where you can make it and know that every geek in the world has the potential to check out your thoughts. Maybe there's some sort of /. similar site out there, which they give you the address of when you finish your Ph. D...