Tag: knex

Computers Don’t Have To Be Electronic

1. Computers don’t have to be electronic (Archimedes’ Antikythera Mechanism, a way to chart the position of the planets dating back to the ancient Greeks; here’s a video telling what it is and showing a working model [7 minutes])

2. Computers don’t have to be electronic (Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace’s Difference Engines; here’s a video about it [5½ minutes], with some clips of one in operation)

3. Computers don’t have to be electronic (The Digi-Comp 1 kit from 1963, computing with rubber bands; here’s a video about it, 16 minutes)

4. Computers don’t have to be electronic (Turing Tumble, a kit and game you can get that does computations with the action of falling marbles; here’s their Getting Started video [5 minutes])

5. Computers don’t have to be electronic (The 8-Bit computer built of K’NEX parts called the MechaDigit-1, bits posted here twice before; here’s video of it [18 minutes]; and here’s an older project called the K’nuter [10 minutes])

The 8-Bit Computer Implemented in K’NEX

It’s an oft-forgotten fact that the workings of the modern computer don’t require electronics. All of the basic logic gates can be implemented, although much more slowly and prone to malfunction, with physical Newtonian parts.

Shadowman39 has been working hard to implement an 8-bit computer entirely out of parts of the building set K’NEX. He’s just released his fourth progress video (18 minutes):

Here are the previous videos in the series: Part 1: the ALU (15 minutes), Part 2: Registers, RAM and Data Transfer (18 minutes) and Part 3: ROM, Program Counter and Jumps (20 minutes).

This isn’t the only K’NEX-based computing device out there, but it seems to be the most complex and capable of doing actual work. I do hope that none of the little plastic parts on the inside of that multicolor computational Borg cube doesn’t break a tooth, because replacing it seems like it would be nearly as hard as fixing a cylinder in an engine block.