7 ms·
The Embroidered Computer
- JohnJamesRambo 8y ago*Embroidered. And that is really interesting.
- Isamu 8y agoZoom in on the second photo and see the relays flipping, really cool. They don’t describe how they made these decorative relays. Does anyone have any details? [edit] I wanted to emphasize that this goes beyond the expected “sew prefabricated components to cloth” and instead is pretty much all embroidery (maybe crochet also.) That is several kinds of awesome.
- eternalban 8y agohttp://www.stitchingworlds.net/reflection-dissemination/book-stitching-worlds-exploring-textiles-and-electronics/ http://www.stitchingworlds.net/reflection-dissemination/book...
- robocat 8y agoThis link: http://www.ireneposch.net/1-bit-textile/ http://www.ireneposch.net/1-bit-textile/ shows a single bead being flipped, without it also controlling a switch (to become a relay).
- userbinator 8y agoThe action of the relays somewhat reminds me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-disc_display
- pharke 8y agoI wonder if you could also add magnetic core memory to this. The ferrite beads and their wires could make an attractive pattern.
- kijin 8y agoThe closeup is beautiful, but the overall design looks like a three-year-old with a glitter pen drew all over the table. Most of the lines aren't even sewn into the cloth. Perhaps the next iteration could borrow design elements from actual embroidery (leaves, flowers, etc.) and cleverly embed the circuit inside them. Or they could go in the opposite direction, straighten out the lines, and make an embroidery inspired by printed circuit boards. Either way, I hope they don't stop here but keep making better versions. This could be turned into something that people actually want to hang on their walls.
- elsherbini 8y agoI like it how it is. It reminds me of Snail Drawings by Daniel Renali [0], it makes me think about order/logic and the contrast to a lot of patterns seen in nature. [0] https://www.danielranalli.com/recent-work/snail-drawings-series/363 https://www.danielranalli.com/recent-work/snail-drawings-ser...
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoTo each their own. I love how it looks as is.
- Aardwolf 8y agoPersonally I love the design. While beautiful, it has a certain eery quality to it, as if the piece of fabric is "alive" with relays as eyes I wish there were more photos with less blur and higher resolution diagrams
- mechagodzilla 8y agoI really want more details about what the logic is doing! All I can find so far is the one blurry logic diagram
- userbinator 8y agoThe logic diagram appears to contain two registers, an ALU, and some control logic. The ALU is bit-serial, judging by the width of the datapaths and the mudems connecting the two parts. I don't see memmory, so to call this a "computer" in the modern sense is stretching it a bit; this is a piece of one, but with a very interesting construction technique.
- jonnydubowsky 8y agoThis comment helped me to get a better sense of what is and isn't happening within this project. I have to think it through a bit more, but wonder if given the right middleware, or by cheating a bit in the connections (using an arduino), you could setup a weaving device that utilized the khipu as storage, so the logic could record new sets of knots to a khipu...?
- MarsAscendant 8y agoI find a different project on the website, Drapery FM [http://www.ireneposch.net/drapery-fm/ http://www.ireneposch.net/drapery-fm/], even more interesting. It's a wool installation that transmits its own creation story over the radio. To me, it feels like one of those Clarke's Third Law-tier devices that work seemingly by magic.
- warent 8y agoSomething about it also vaguely seems like an unsettling SCP-like* monster. It would be terrifying to be in a room with that thing all alone at night and it started broadcasting something unexpected. * http://www.scp-wiki.net/ http://www.scp-wiki.net/
- hopler 8y agoMagic? It's aesthetic, but technically it's simply a circuit that with the wires woven together instead of printed in traces on a board. Magic-like tech is the reverse, the amazing minituarization of circuitry to microscopic size. The women computer is a reverse Third law -- sufficiently antique technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- filleduchaos 8y agoWhat exactly is a "women computer"?
- gumby 8y agoI assume it was a typo -- possibly even autocorrect -- for "woven"
- jedimastert 8y agoDoing a little tracking, the FM transmitter circuit refered to can be found here: https://anarchy.translocal.jp/radio/micro/howtosimplestTX.html https://anarchy.translocal.jp/radio/micro/howtosimplestTX.ht...
- elvinyung 8y agoThis reminds me of core rope memory [1], AKA "little old lady" memory, which was literally a ROM that was manually woven. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory
- eletious 8y agoWhat were the actual ropes themselves made of? Just standard rope materials?
- c22 8y agoCopper. Edit: I found a neat video: https://youtu.be/X0WnddW5gZI https://youtu.be/X0WnddW5gZI
- laumars 8y agoI’ve been programming for nearly 30 years and today I just learned that “bits” was derived from BInary digiTS. That’s an amazing video. Thank you for posting it.
- MrEldritch 8y agoAlso, "pixels" is from "PICture ELements"
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago"pels" was an early designation.
- userbinator 8y agoIt's still used among video codec discussions, especially with the MPEG group.
- raimonides 8y ago
- benj111 8y agoSo if you make the case that the jacquard loom was the first computer, the first computer was for weaving, and this is a woven computer. Theres a nice circularity there. Or skynet's plan B?
- vanderZwan 8y agoNice thought! Given that this is an art piece, you can be very certain that this circularity was part of their thought process.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- okl 8y agoI think the gloves on that site are particularly interesting because they show a high integration of textile and electronics with a practical application that actually makes sense.
- bibyte 8y agoCan anyone explains how does this computer works ? Anyway this is really cool. A manual computer is a great project idea.
- maxander 8y agoIt looks like each of those little bead thingies is a transistor; each has three wires leasing up to it with a little loop at the end. Presumably, a charge from the loop to the side can flip the bead, and this makes it conduct. It’s surprising that that works, to say the least. :)
- MrEldritch 8y agoThey're relays, not transistors. But you've got the right principle.
- iguessthislldo 8y agoIt doesn't look like there any real explanation of the architecture beyond this logic diagram: http://www.ireneposch.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/logic-diagram-controll-unit-1_small-1024x338.jpg http://www.ireneposch.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/logic-d... From this it looks like there's two 8 bit registers on the left with control signal coming from the top of the image. There's some logic going on on the right, but it strikes me as not complete though. The fact I can't read the writing doesn't help. There are two Youtube channels I know of where they make a computer and don't assume much about the watcher's prior experience: This channel show a person building a more normal relay computer: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5-_rpS40owFzVVuxDF70Tw/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5-_rpS40owFzVVuxDF70Tw/vid... This playlist shows another person building a more more normal computer out of silicon chips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2565dvjafglHU https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLowKtXNTBypGqImE405J2... If you want to know how this computer works, the first one will give you some idea because it's made of relays too, but the second one in particular gives a good, detailed, complete walkthrough of a working computer.
- nobody271 8y agoWhat do you think it means? Are we mere automata?
- justusthane 8y agoThis is beautiful. I really enjoy and am intrigued by what I think of as the "weird frontier" of technology...things that blur the line between tech and craft like this, offline/distributed tech projects like Scuttlebutt, DIY hacker projects, or anything that uses technology in unconventional and creative ways. Does anyone have favorite blogs or websites that revolve around this sort of content?
- ryanmarsh 8y agoThought I was going to see the core rope memory of the Apollo Guidance Computer. Beautiful nonetheless.