On Jan 10, 2008 3:18 PM, David Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Thu, Jan 10, 2008 at 10:53:56AM -0800, Gregory K. Ruiz-Ade wrote: > > > Thanks for pointing this out, I think it's completely awesome, and dispels > > a lot of mysticism that surrounds the "magic black boxes" that make my > > computers compute. > > There was an April 1 article in Scientific American many years ago that > described how to build the basic logic gates out of ropes and pulleys. It > was written from the perspective of an archaeological discovery. > > There seems to be a copy in the book "Humor the Computer", which you might > be able to find at: > <http://books.google.com/books?id=0Rb5jBg6sJwC&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=rope+computer&source=web&ots=UGPCYt1jee&sig=AR8Ogj08wu7aDrZY7j0bBBtH6BM> > <http://tinyurl.com/2ph54e>
A.K. Dewdney "An Ancient Rope-And-Pulley Computer Is Unearthed In The Jungle of Apraphul" Scientific American, April 1988. More contemporary gadgets that you can build are the AND Goat, the OR Goat, and the NOT Goat. <http://www.flying-pig.co.uk/pagesv/logicgoat.html>. carl -- carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg
