15
votes
Human-powered Turing Machine constructed out of Legos
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- Title
- Functional LEGO Turing Machine Brings Algorithm Processing to Life with 2,900 Bricks - Yanko Design
- Authors
- Sarang Sheth
- Published
- Oct 3 2024
- Word count
- 748 words
I remember visiting the Living Computers museum in Seattle before the pandemic forced it out of business. They had so many cool things on exhibition there, but one of the most memorable for me was the simple mechanical computers you could play with. These were wooden boards fashioned with tracks for marbles to run along, and little switches that could be preset in various positions to serve as the program to run. Turning a little hand-crank would start running marbles up to the top where they would run, pachinko-like, through the logic gates until the program finished.
I wish I could remember what those were called. IIRC they were hobbyist kits sold in the ‘70s or ‘80s, I remember they had their company name and address stamped on the front. I guess something like this LEGO set would be the contemporary equivalent but both are really cool (and great learning tools) in their own ways.
I did a quick search because I was interested, but all I could find was a newer pachinko-like computer board called "Turing Tumble." It looks to be precisely the sort of device you were describing, but it seems to have been released recently.
Good find! Yeah, that's basically a plastic version of the thing I was thinking of. The thing I used had a retro Radio Shack kinda vibe. Come to think of it, they might have been metal ball bearings instead of glass marbles, but same difference. It had a physical book of programs with it that you could peruse and try implementing.
All credit to "Bananaman". I may need to start saving up for this set...