14 Feb
2008
14 Feb
'08
4:25 p.m.
dwight elvey wrote:
It's possible, I'd think (there's a nice page about a marble-based binary
adder at http://woodgears.ca/marbleadd/index.html if you haven't seen it before).
The main problem with a marble machine is likely to be maintaining state, as
any kind of 'read' within the system tends to be destructive. Doubtless there
are ways around that (e.g. the presence of a marble presses a lever which
results in a marble coming from some large hopper somewhere upon any kind of
'read' op, rather than the 'trigger' marble itself moving)
I believe that the electronic computer was just an idea whose time had come; I
don't think there's anything that would have prevented something similar
(non-electronic). We've all heard about Babbage, military mechanical gun
control computers, Meccano differential analysers, Victorian automatons etc. -
it's just that prior to the "usual suspects" (Harvard Mk. 1 etc.) there was
simply no perceived benefit in making an electronic, stored-program machine.
cheers
Jules
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:02:32 -0600
From: jules.richardson99 at gmail.com
---snip---
No idea why, but whenever I come across a system,
I end up asking myself "how
could this have been done* without electronics?" - I find mechanical analogues
of electronic/electrical systems fascinating...
* Not cheaper, faster, to the same scale etc. obviously - just whether it
could be done at all.
Hi
A few years back I gave a lot of thought to a computer that used
marbles for bits. It was mainly intended as a visual computer.