A LEGO version of an old "marble logic" computer called Digi-Comp II. I set out to rebuild it from LEGO, using various tidbits and plans from the internet. More pictures of the components can be fo...
A LEGO version of an old "marble logic" computer called Digi-Comp II. I set out to rebuild it from LEGO, using various tidbits and plans from the internet. More pictures of the components can be found in my Brickshelf gallery here:
I tried to recreate the original DGII design, but did make a few modifications, such as changing the "clear" switch to "clear once" style operation, & not bothering with the "auto/manual" switch (defaults to automatic) or neatly routing all the outputs back to a single collection tray (in particular, the "M/Q underflow"). It works amazingly well, and I think could be modified to essentially release four balls closely spaced in multiple mode.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the "Friends of Digi-comp" Yahoo group for advice & documentation, & to ESR & John Godfrey for making such an ingenious mechanical computer in the first place.
The finished model weighs about 10 pounds, & uses 14 simple switches, 21 flip-flops, 8 half flip-flops, and a ball release mechanism. I'm currently building a slightly improved copy at the request of a museum, for public display.
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That depends on what version of Windows you're running :). It's at least a lot more fun to watch it work, but the reliability isn't all that hot - I think I remember that a reasonable multiplication ends up taking a couple of hundred gate interactions, so if the reliability of the gate design is 99%... you'd still never get an accurate calculation. Getting the reliability of the flip-flops up above 99.5% for a single gate was a serious issue.
Getting it to do that would be one thing. Getting it to do that on the kinetic power of those light soccer balls would be the tough part. Might have to go to something a bit heavier.
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