What is a Microcore?
The Microcore combines the Quadcore (4-Nv) topology with accompanying circuitry. The Quadcore uses 4/6 of the 74xx14, leaving two inverters left over for additional neurons. This is the most common configuration. The VBug robots used the Microcore architecture. An excerpt from “Theoretical Foundations for Nervous Networks and the Design of Living Machines” by Mark W. Tilden: … The smallest possible Nervous network (defined as the “Microcore”) for a capable quadruped with 1.25 degrees-of-freedom per leg. It features twelve transistors in a single hex-inverter chip, eight used for the Nv Microcore, and four more for a primitive neural-net “brain” so that the machine can sort itself out on power-on, and reverse when encountering an obstacle. Though many other complex Nv architectures were tried, this was the first such design that shared up to three motors from the same neuron in a tight, adaptive structure.
