The incredible binary marble adding machine (made out of wood!)

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Bas

Recovering tool addict
Bas
Corporate Member
There are only 3 kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't.
 

Kicbak

New User
Wes
That is really cool. Not sure I'll ever have time to sit down and try to build something like that...or come up with something like that to do. I guess I'll have to stick to base 2 at work.

Wes
 

JackLeg

New User
Reggie
LOML took one look at that video and her first question was: "Can you make one of those tomorrow?"
:rotflm::rotflm::rotflm::rotflm::rotflm::rotflm::rotflm::rotflm:
 

Alan in Little Washington

Alan Schaffter
Corporate Member
Really neat. I might have to build one of those! Of course I'll improve on the design- I'll automate it since it requires too much manual operation.
:rotflm::rotflm::rotflm::rotflm:

During my first year of undergraduate tradeschool there were only three responses allowed:

Yes, sir! No, sir! I'll find out, sir!
 

JimmyC

New User
Jimmy
Really neat. I might have to build one of those! Of course I'll improve on the design- I'll automate it since it requires too much manual operation.
:rotflm::rotflm::rotflm::rotflm:

During my first year of undergraduate tradeschool there were only three responses allowed:

Yes, sir! No, sir! I'll find out, sir!

Alan,
I'm sure if you automate it, the medium will pneumatic:lol::lol::lol:.

Jimmy:)
 

Bas

Recovering tool addict
Bas
Corporate Member
Really neat. I might have to build one of those! Of course I'll improve on the design- I'll automate it since it requires too much manual operation.
That's a great idea! I assume this involves more pneumatic valves. I suggest you hook them up to a computer, so you can simulate each marble by clicking the appropriate "marble" on the screen. Heck, you can even make it an 7 bit machine! :rolf:
 

ptt49er

Phillip
Corporate Member
You guys really need to lurk around on his site some! He is a very prolific inventor!! Lots of neat stuff, not to mention a few other crazy marble machines.
 

Alan in Little Washington

Alan Schaffter
Corporate Member
He does have some neat inventions etc. Too bad his artistic and woodworking talents aren't a little better. I have seen some fantastic stuff like he has done, but much nicer looking, in art shows and science museums.
 

mkepke

Mark
Senior User
It's a neat machine, but ironic that the user still has to perform manual addition over 90% of the time.

The answer can be directly read off the machine in only 5 out of 63 possible numbers.

-Mark
 

Gofor

Mark
Corporate Member
It's a neat machine, but ironic that the user still has to perform manual addition over 90% of the time.

The answer can be directly read off the machine in only 5 out of 63 possible numbers.

-Mark

Don't you mean 00000101 out of 00111111?

Go:icon_scra
 

Will Goodwin

New User
Will Goodwin
Ok the bad thing about me .. while I was watching the video, I was trying to figure out if it was correct. It's been a long time since I had to do anything like that. Got any Hex calculators made out of wood? lol.

I like that site too...after I watched the video, I looked at some of the plans they have. Cool.
 

Bas

Recovering tool addict
Bas
Corporate Member
Will, that's not good man. Binary arithmetic is a required skill for programmers :) Yeah, it was all correct. I wonder how easy it would be to make other processor components out of wood, like a shifter. Memory should be easy to implement, although you need a large shop if you want more than a few bytes. I don't think anyone has ever invented a better reason to build a bigger shop!

Interesting side note: Before computers, people built mechanical calculators, like the Curta. Addition wasn't an issue, but subtraction was complicated. But, for those versed in binary, subtraction is nothing more than adding the complement of a number. Many techniques used in computers were actually invented before the computer!
 
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