I'm a big fan of "mechanical solutions to computer problems." I think it's extremely interesting to see how hard it is to encode logic pre-transistor, and make

I'm a big fan of "mechanical solutions to computer problems." I think it's extremely interesting to see how hard it is to encode logic pre-transistor, and makes me feel spoiled today (in a good way). My favorite example is the writer automaton [1]. It's something that never stops to impress me, just because it's something that wouldn't be that hard nowadays, but must have required effectively PhD levels of understanding to do pre-computer. [1] https://youtu.be/OehTO9l1Hp8 https://youtu.be/OehTO9l1Hp8