4 ms·

Flip-flip gates seem like a confusing way to first learn about ram/variables. Plus we barely see any demos of an actual puzzle solution in the video. Because t

Flip-flip gates seem like a confusing way to first learn about ram/variables. Plus we barely see any demos of an actual puzzle solution in the video. Because the number of ball drops needed to do anything sophisticated is probably overbearing. The cringe factor is very high. I don't trust this dude, the "Im making educational lollypops for kids" pitch is oversold for what is an underwhelming product. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop_(electronics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop_(electronics)

anton_gogolev 9y ago
See Kickstarter page [1] for a lot of "In Action" videos. [1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/871405126/turing-tumble-gaming-on-a-mechanical-computer/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/871405126/turing-tumble...
jhbadger 9y ago
This isn't about high level concepts like RAM or variables but actually understanding how a computer works -- a fair number of actual programmers have no idea of how a computer actually multiplies a number -- it might as well be magic as far as they know. As for number of ball drops for anything "sophisticated", it all depends on the meaning of "sophisticated" -- basically what the guy proposes is a modern, more flexible version of 1960s marble teaching computers like the DigiComp II. You couldn't use them to compute anything practical, yes, but that wasn't the point. Here's a link to the DigiComp II manual to see what you could do with them: http://cdn2.evilmadscience.com/KitInstrux/DCII-manual.pdf http://cdn2.evilmadscience.com/KitInstrux/DCII-manual.pdf
- sohkamyung 9y ago
  Agree. During my Undergrad EE course on computer architecture, it made a big impression on me that it's basically all switches in there. A computer has no idea what multiplication, addition, comparison, branching, etc. are: it just follows a set of instructions laid out in electrical switches to perform those operations. I am intrigued by the included gears shown in the Kickstarter video that make the system "Turing complete". The fact that the creator is willing to give away the CAD files as one of the reward levels means in that you could design you own really huge set: perhaps big enough to emulate a really slow (one bit?) CPU! ;-)
- crispyambulance 9y ago
  Yeah, it's a beautiful little machine-- a neat on-ramp for future FPGA programmers. Here's the text that showed me "how computers work". Page after page of Verilog, VHDL and gate-design, all equivalent! ... https://www.amazon.com/Hdl-Chip-Design-Synthesizing-Simulating/ https://www.amazon.com/Hdl-Chip-Design-Synthesizing-Simulati...
- shakna 9y ago
  The cardboard 4-bit calculator [0] might make for interesting reading along these lines. [0] https://lapinozz.github.io/learning/2016/11/19/calculator-with-caordboard-and-marbles.html https://lapinozz.github.io/learning/2016/11/19/calculator-wi...
- intoverflow2 9y ago
  > actually understanding how a computer works Question for me is does it actually matter? Do they care? And will understanding this actually make them want to engage with the topic further? Even me growing up back in the Amiga 500 days I couldn't really care less how the machine actually worked, the impetus to learn how to control it came from the want to make my own games not to understand how it did something as boring as add two numbers together.
  - indigochill 9y ago
    Do they care? Depends, I guess. But more importantly, does it matter? At a collective level, absolutely. When there's a layer of a system you don't understand, you introduce a couple of potential problems. 1. The system has a flaw at that level and you don't know what to do about it. A real world example of this is hardware manufactured by the lowest bidder not matching the specifications, potentially introducing bugs that are impossible to debug without an understanding of what's happening at the hardware level. 2. The system has a potential exploit at a level you don't understand, and someone uses it to take advantage of you. This is basically all home owners getting their computers infected with malware. Sure, they can run their antivirus in 99.9% of cases, but if they ever get a virus that isn't in their antivirus' list, then they're effectively out a computer. So yes, people should know how a computer works (at least in principle) at every level. This is essentially the same as knowing how your car works so when it breaks you can fix it instead of sending it to a mechanic for overpriced repairs.
- klik99 9y ago
  The fact that so many people confuse 'computing' with 'von Neumann architecture' shows how few know the underlying logic.
gchadwick 9y ago
I'd see this more as trying to teach the computational thinking mindset. The idea of trying to create complex behaviours from simple rulesets (and trying to work out why it doesn't work when things go wrong!). The rules themselves don't matter too much. Turing completeness means you can happy they'll be a vast range of complex behaviours to explore.
mcphage 9y ago
> Because the number of ball drops needed to do anything sophisticated is probably overbearing. That's one of the nice things about these abstract computers. Doing something sophisticated would be difficult, but doing something simple (yet non-trivial) requires thought and planning. Check out the KS page for demonstrations of Red-Red-Blue-Blue, binary counting, and powers of 2.

anton_gogolev 9y ago

See Kickstarter page [1] for a lot of "In Action" videos. [1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/871405126/turing-tumble-gaming-on-a-mechanical-computer/description https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/871405126/turing-tumble...

jhbadger 9y ago

This isn't about high level concepts like RAM or variables but actually understanding how a computer works -- a fair number of actual programmers have no idea of how a computer actually multiplies a number -- it might as well be magic as far as they know. As for number of ball drops for anything "sophisticated", it all depends on the meaning of "sophisticated" -- basically what the guy proposes is a modern, more flexible version of 1960s marble teaching computers like the DigiComp II. You couldn't use them to compute anything practical, yes, but that wasn't the point. Here's a link to the DigiComp II manual to see what you could do with them: http://cdn2.evilmadscience.com/KitInstrux/DCII-manual.pdf http://cdn2.evilmadscience.com/KitInstrux/DCII-manual.pdf

sohkamyung 9y ago
Agree. During my Undergrad EE course on computer architecture, it made a big impression on me that it's basically all switches in there. A computer has no idea what multiplication, addition, comparison, branching, etc. are: it just follows a set of instructions laid out in electrical switches to perform those operations. I am intrigued by the included gears shown in the Kickstarter video that make the system "Turing complete". The fact that the creator is willing to give away the CAD files as one of the reward levels means in that you could design you own really huge set: perhaps big enough to emulate a really slow (one bit?) CPU! ;-)
crispyambulance 9y ago
Yeah, it's a beautiful little machine-- a neat on-ramp for future FPGA programmers. Here's the text that showed me "how computers work". Page after page of Verilog, VHDL and gate-design, all equivalent! ... https://www.amazon.com/Hdl-Chip-Design-Synthesizing-Simulating/ https://www.amazon.com/Hdl-Chip-Design-Synthesizing-Simulati...
shakna 9y ago
The cardboard 4-bit calculator [0] might make for interesting reading along these lines. [0] https://lapinozz.github.io/learning/2016/11/19/calculator-with-caordboard-and-marbles.html https://lapinozz.github.io/learning/2016/11/19/calculator-wi...
intoverflow2 9y ago
> actually understanding how a computer works Question for me is does it actually matter? Do they care? And will understanding this actually make them want to engage with the topic further? Even me growing up back in the Amiga 500 days I couldn't really care less how the machine actually worked, the impetus to learn how to control it came from the want to make my own games not to understand how it did something as boring as add two numbers together.
- indigochill 9y ago
  Do they care? Depends, I guess. But more importantly, does it matter? At a collective level, absolutely. When there's a layer of a system you don't understand, you introduce a couple of potential problems. 1. The system has a flaw at that level and you don't know what to do about it. A real world example of this is hardware manufactured by the lowest bidder not matching the specifications, potentially introducing bugs that are impossible to debug without an understanding of what's happening at the hardware level. 2. The system has a potential exploit at a level you don't understand, and someone uses it to take advantage of you. This is basically all home owners getting their computers infected with malware. Sure, they can run their antivirus in 99.9% of cases, but if they ever get a virus that isn't in their antivirus' list, then they're effectively out a computer. So yes, people should know how a computer works (at least in principle) at every level. This is essentially the same as knowing how your car works so when it breaks you can fix it instead of sending it to a mechanic for overpriced repairs.
klik99 9y ago
The fact that so many people confuse 'computing' with 'von Neumann architecture' shows how few know the underlying logic.

gchadwick 9y ago

I'd see this more as trying to teach the computational thinking mindset. The idea of trying to create complex behaviours from simple rulesets (and trying to work out why it doesn't work when things go wrong!). The rules themselves don't matter too much. Turing completeness means you can happy they'll be a vast range of complex behaviours to explore.

mcphage 9y ago

> Because the number of ball drops needed to do anything sophisticated is probably overbearing. That's one of the nice things about these abstract computers. Doing something sophisticated would be difficult, but doing something simple (yet non-trivial) requires thought and planning. Check out the KS page for demonstrations of Red-Red-Blue-Blue, binary counting, and powers of 2.