4 ms·
The dry history of liquid computers
- sehugg 8y agoLogic Gates Under (Air) Pressure: https://hackaday.com/2017/08/19/logic-gates-under-air-pressure/ https://hackaday.com/2017/08/19/logic-gates-under-air-pressu...
- c22 8y agoWhen I was a kid I used to make walking Lego models using Lego pneumatic elements and pneumatic logic to synchronize movement. My experiments eventually culminated in a (extremely slow) Rubik's cube manipulator which used a couple of first generation Mindstorm RCXs to "solve" the cube by reversing the shuffling stage.
- userbinator 8y agoThere is one big omission in this article, which seems to focus mainly on hydrodynamic computing: "static" hydraulic computing, as implemented with relay valves --- and found major application as the control unit of passenger car automatic trnsmissions throughout much of the last century, before electronic controls became common. Examples: http://cogpro.com/chapters/M-ThreeSpeedHydramatic/images/M%20-%203%20spd%20HM0092_jpg.jpg http://cogpro.com/chapters/M-ThreeSpeedHydramatic/images/M%2... http://oldcarblog.com/manuals/1970/1970%20Service%20Manual/19-%20400%20Turbo%20AT/b_P0018.jpg http://oldcarblog.com/manuals/1970/1970%20Service%20Manual/1...