http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/mjhoward/logic.html
cheers,
Kris
Of course someone will ask
“When will Linux run on my lego machine?”
Kris Warkentin wrote:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/mjhoward/logic.html
cheers,
Kris
Mechanical logic is quite possible, but those aren’t very
good implementations. None of them have gain. It’s like
diode/resistor logic. You need power shafts and clutches,
like a mechanical desk calculator. Once you have elements
with gain, and detents, so you can clean up a signal, you
can make arbitrarily long chains of mechanical logic.
Ever see a mechanical shift register? The first one is
in the London Transport Museum, and they are still seen
in older printing presses and textile machinery.
The peak of pure mechanical computation was reached
with the Burroughs Sensimatic and the Remington Rand
Model 3 Tabulator. Both were programmable devices that
worked entirely mechanically. Those were the last
of the pure mechanicals.
The Kensington Science Museum in London has good
collections of mechanical computational devices.
John Nagle
Kris Warkentin wrote:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/mjhoward/logic.html
cheers,
Kris
John Nagle <nagle@downside.com> wrote:
Mechanical logic is quite possible, but those aren’t very
good implementations. None of them have gain. It’s like
diode/resistor logic. You need power shafts and clutches,
like a mechanical desk calculator. Once you have elements
with gain, and detents, so you can clean up a signal, you
can make arbitrarily long chains of mechanical logic.
I think the amazing part is that you can use Lego to build it. I remember
when the cool new addition to Lego was wheels – suddenly, you could
create vehicles instead of just buildings. Windmills also became a
possibility.
Steve Reid stever@qnx.com
TechPubs (Technical Publications)
QNX Software Systems
Kris Warkentin wrote:
Have, I’ve seen that at Geocities and other places before:
Temporarily Unavailable
The Tiscali site you are trying to reach has been temporarily suspended
due to excessive bandwidth consumption.
The site may be available again in a few hours!
Are you the owner of this site?
Please read Terms & Conditions on bandwidth usage.
I especially like that last bit. 
–
Chris Herborth (cherborth@qnx.com)
Never send a monster to do the work of an evil scientist.
Colin Burgess wrote:
Of course someone will ask
“When will Linux run on my lego machine?”
Chances are that NetBSD already supports it…
–
Chris Herborth (cherborth@qnx.com)
Never send a monster to do the work of an evil scientist.