Ron Hudson wrote:
...
If the desert island has vines you could make a
rope computer, as
described in a
Scientific American, I don't remember the issue.
It was an april fool's issue, I believe. If memory serves, the island
was called APRLFUL or something like that. The article showed how,
with clever arrangements pullies, toggles, springs and such, inverters
and simple logic gates could be produced. Entertaining enough.
The problem with that "computer" is that the logic gates have no gain.
What you want is 'reversable logic'. Mechanical logic may make a come
back in
computing since moliecular sized logic can use very little power.
Ben alias woodelf