Preview
We still have two more magic tricks to learn! Luckily, these two new ones are based on tricks we already know.
We’ve already seen the OR gate and its negation, the NOR gate. In this episode, we introduce a variation on the OR gate, called the XOR (pronounced “ex-or”) gate as well as its negation, called the XNOR (pronounced “ex-nor”) gate.
Play
Play with the inputs of the OR gate and the XOR gate. Notice the sets of inputs for which the outputs are the same. Notice the sets of inputs for which the outputs are different. How would you describe the relationship between the OR gate and the XOR gate?
[CircuitVerse embed: https://circuitverse.org/simulator/embed/or-xor-play]
You should notice that the OR gate and the XOR gate are almost identical. The X in XOR stands for “exclusive” so we sometimes call the XOR gate the “exclusive OR” gate. This means that the output is 1 if either one of the inputs is 1, but they are not both 1.
Now let’s look at the negations of the OR gate and the XOR gate. Play with the inputs of the OR gate, the XOR gate as well as their negations, the NOR gate and the XNOR gate. For the NOR and XNOR gates, notice the sets of inputs for which the outputs are the same. For the NOR and XNOR gates, notice the sets of inputs for which the outputs are different. How would you describe the relationship between the NOR gate and the XNOR gate?
[CircuitVerse embed: https://circuitverse.org/simulator/embed/or-nor-xor-xnor-play]
Progress
[maybe add some Boolean algebra to the flashcards?]
Practice
[WW: Fill in some truth tables and/or complete some Boolean expressions]
