Bit Serial Computers

As you might well have guessed, there is a science fiction theme to this project.  It's the original Star Trek episode, "The City on the Edge of Forever".  Spock and Kirk are sent back in time to the 1930's by the "Guardian of Forever", a gateway to any time or place.  Long story short Spock hacks together a computer from vacuum tubes to read the date from his tricorder at a slower rate.  In fact, I originally wanted to implement this idea in electron tubes and optical discs.  Tubes are hard to come by these days, and laborious to make (I'll tell you that story some day).  Luckily it started to become clear that I could make a rather compact geared computer.

Kirk is saying, "Spock, why don't you use the computer in the tricorder?"

I'm pretty sure Spock didn't need a vacuum tube computer to solve his problem. When he realised he was stuck in the 1930's, he had to busy himself with something, so built a computer to answer philosophical questions about being.

I bet you thought it would be 42.

This computer might be made of wood, but I'm not limiting myself to any historical period of implementation.  Like Mr. Spock, I get to choose from centuries of "human" (he was only half human) achievements in logic and invention.  Also, I do already have a computer.  That does make things a bit easier.

A great deal of the science fact inspiring the design comes from modern Field-programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and their properties of sequential logic, signal routing and time domains. 

FPGA Cell

My options for signal routing on the wooden implementation are basically levers, telescoping axles and other gears.  Limited by only the physical realies of size, friction, and speed.  I can connect an endless series of gears together as long as I gear down, but then the machine grows larger and likewise takes an eternity to get a result.  Leading to endlessly long and circular conversations with the "Guardian of Forever".

"Are you machine, or being?" "I am both... and neither. I am my own beginning, my own ending."

I've been avoiding any discussion of symbol assignment or computer architecture.  I'll continue to do this, because making a physical computer, be it from wood or silicon, has more to do with the question of "What is?" than the structure of what is.  Everything else is abstraction, however wonderful and convenient those abstractions are.

One computer architecture I will introduce is the Bit Serial Computer or most simply Serial Computer.  Serial computers were developed to process the streams of data being returned by WW II radar systems, although we might argue that the modulators and demodulators of radios are a simple version of this concept.

Anyway, of interest to our implementation is a massively parallel serial computer called, CM-1.  Designed in the 1980's, this computer has 65,536 processors connected together in hypercube arrangement using a switch called the nexus.  I kid you not!

CM-1

The CM-1 was designed based on Danny Hillis' thesis work at MIT.   While at MIT, Danny Hillis and Brian Silverman designed and built the very first wooden general purpose computer using tinker-toys!  Check it out, it's seriously cool.
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/472_html/Intro/TinkertoyComputer/TinkerToy.html

source: www.computerhistory.org

Maybe I should introduce myself to Danny?

Hello Danny, my name is Brent.  Would you like to play a game?

I suspect that he just might...

Danny is also a co-founder of the Long Now Foundation.  We are taking a stroll down there today.  So, I'll take some picture to share.

***update!!!
Check out the pictures from today's trip down to the Long Now Foundation.
http://fractalclockwork.blogspot.com/2012/04/field-trip-to-future.html

BTW: I think I've just found my inspiration for the hyper-dimensional version of "Grey Goo" the card game.  Stay tuned for the next edition of Grey Goo, The Hyper-Turtle Edition...