Pre-release: Chip Hippo is still in active development. Expect rough edges — user discretion is advised.
v1.0.2 — Now Available

Build 74xx logic
on virtual breadboards

Chip Hippo is a desktop playground for TTL circuits. Drop 74-series chips onto an infinite desktop, wire them up, hit Run — and watch electricity ripple through every net until it settles. LEDs light, counters count, magic smoke. All offline.

Download Free Mac App Store View on GitHub

macOS · Windows · Linux  ·  Free & open source

A Chip Hippo circuit: a W65C02 CPU with an AT28C EEPROM and an HM62256 SRAM across four stacked breadboards, fed by a 5 V supply and a 10 Hz clock, driving a 16x2 character LCD part-way through printing Hello, world. A 74LS00 quad 2-input NAND bench: four slide switches labelled A to D feed the four gates through pull-down resistors, and the four outputs 1Y to 4Y drive LEDs, all on one breadboard from a 5 V supply. Two builds of the same Chip Hippo circuit on one desk: a W65C02 CPU, an 8K ROM, a W65C22 VIA and a 74LS04 across stacked breadboards, each with a 5 V supply and a 10 Hz clock. The lower copy has its wires faded back so the board beneath them shows through.

Features

A real bench, without the wire mess

Everything you need to design a 74xx circuit, prove it out, and take it to a real breadboard — fast, keyboard-friendly, and fully offline.

Infinite breadboard desk

An endlessly pannable, zoomable workspace. Drop Full 830, Half 400, and Tiny 170 boards — power rails and pin-boards snap together like the real thing.

50+ 74xx chips

Gates, flip-flops, counters, decoders, muxes, shift registers, comparators, and bus drivers — a data-driven catalog with datasheet-exact pinouts. Add a chip; it's just data.

Live simulation engine

Trace power from the supplies, resolve every electrical net, compute each chip's outputs, and ripple changes until the circuit settles. LEDs glow, switches act live.

Sequential logic & clocking

Edge-triggered flip-flops, counters, and shift registers step correctly on every clock. A clock source drives the bench with Run / Pause / Single-step and speed control.

Memory chips

Address-indexed ROM, SRAM, and EEPROM on wide DIP packages. Drive the address bus and the stored byte appears on the data pins; write it back on a /WE pulse.

Switches, LEDs & power

Slide switches, momentary push buttons, four-colour polarised LEDs, and 3 V / 5 V / 12 V supplies with addressable terminals. Wrong voltage? Watch a chip release its magic smoke.

Net probe & inspector

Hover any hole to highlight its entire electrical net across every board and wire, with a live readout of what's connected and the level it's carrying.

Buses

Wire a whole address or data bus in a single gesture instead of one lead at a time — the bus tool tracks matching pin groups across chips and keeps the routing tidy.

Pinouts & datasheets

Double-click any part for a floating pin-assignment window — the physical DIP diagram plus the manufacturer's connection diagram and function table, right on the desk.

Downloads

Available for every desktop

Version 1.0.2 — free to download and use. No account required.

macOS
macOS 12 Monterey or later
Get it on the Mac App Store
Signed and notarized by Apple
Windows
Windows 10 / 11, 64-bit
Linux
64-bit · glibc 2.28+

The Mac App Store build is signed and notarized by Apple and needs nothing bypassed. Direct downloads are currently unsigned: on macOS, right-click the app and choose Open to bypass Gatekeeper the first time; on Windows, choose More info → Run anyway at the SmartScreen prompt. See the code-signing policy for how to verify a build, or build from source.

Feedback

Got an idea for Chip Hippo?

Missing a 74xx part, a tool, or a workflow you rely on at the bench? Feature requests are tracked on GitHub, out in the open — open one and it goes on the list.