Subject:
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Re: Building a computer from Lego's
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Thu, 1 Feb 2001 01:24:39 GMT
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Viewed:
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1467 times
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I took a look at the Dewdney article, and I agree, it is a quasi-digital
device, but not a general-purpose computer at all.
I have been working on a "universal Turing machine" made from Lego technics
parts, but I am cheating and using an RCX for the controller. The idea is
that Lego parts are used for the cells on the 'tape'. (I am using the 3x3
L-shaped lift arms in an array for the cells). This has been done before, I
know. However, my idea is that the actual Turing program is read into the
RCX from a specific pattern of bricks that represents the states, 0/1 input
and output states, and left/right moves. The machine is initialized by
'reading' the bricks that represent the program. This program is then
created in RCX memory, and then it is executed using the L-arm array as the
tape. The advantage is that many different kinds of programs can be run
without reprogramming the RCX. I think I have figured out a pattern of
'programming' bricks that can be reliably read for up to an 8-state Turing
program. My 'tape' has only 32 cells, which makes the automaton a linear
bounded automaton, rather than a real Turing machine, which needs an infinite
tape.
-Bill Leue
wleue1@nycap.rr.com
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Building a computer from Lego's
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| (...) Nonsense. I quote: "No general-purpose computer is complete without a memory. The memory of the Apraphulian computer consisted of hundreds of special storage elements we would call flip-flops. Here again the remarkable simplicity of the (...) (24 years ago, 1-Feb-01, to lugnet.robotics)
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