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The first work on using fluids to implement logic gates can be traced back to the late 1950s/early 1960s The GM Hydramatic automatic transmission, introduced i

The first work on using fluids to implement logic gates can be traced back to the late 1950s/early 1960s The GM Hydramatic automatic transmission, introduced in 1939, used a "computer" based on spool valves. Perhaps the designers didn't explicitly think of the term "logic gate" but the task of deciding which bands and clutches to apply for a given gear is done by a hydraulic circuit that effectively computes boolean expressions. This was the norm until the late 70s/early 80s when computer controlled transmissions started appearing.

xattt 2y ago
Valve bodies had some sort of subconscious loose association with ICs. This comment makes the link for me as to why!
- willis936 2y ago
  Transistors are electronic valves. Valves are the building blocks for automata and arguably an aspect common to all things that are considered "life".
  - szvsw 2y ago
    I always knew HVAC systems were alive! Guess I can finally explain to people why I got into hvac/building tech in a cool way… thanks. In all seriousness though: What else does a valve come with, necessarily, for it to be a valve - some form of actuation, for without actuation, it is just an aperture or a wall. It is actuation that gives it its “valveness.” And for there to be actuation, there must be some mechanism for driving that actuation: in other words receptors/sensors. Without a sensor, it’s just a flap flailing in the noise, pure chaos. Even a simple one-way valve, diode etc has this notion of sensory reception present physically embodied in its architecture (where the signal and the modulated flow are one and the same in the case of a one way valve). All that is just to say that we can kind of think of a valve as the simplest cybernetic system, ie sensor + actuator. And on the other hand, like you suggested, we can probably boil any cybernetic system down into a network of valves in some abstract sense, things that receive flows modulate them (whether discretely or continuously, analog or digital, soft or wet or hard or dry), and route them according to other signals, etc etc
  - perilunar 2y ago
    Vacuum tubes (i.e. thermionic vacuum tubes) are 'electronic valves', at least in British english.

xattt 2y ago

Valve bodies had some sort of subconscious loose association with ICs. This comment makes the link for me as to why!

willis936 2y ago
Transistors are electronic valves. Valves are the building blocks for automata and arguably an aspect common to all things that are considered "life".
- szvsw 2y ago
  I always knew HVAC systems were alive! Guess I can finally explain to people why I got into hvac/building tech in a cool way… thanks. In all seriousness though: What else does a valve come with, necessarily, for it to be a valve - some form of actuation, for without actuation, it is just an aperture or a wall. It is actuation that gives it its “valveness.” And for there to be actuation, there must be some mechanism for driving that actuation: in other words receptors/sensors. Without a sensor, it’s just a flap flailing in the noise, pure chaos. Even a simple one-way valve, diode etc has this notion of sensory reception present physically embodied in its architecture (where the signal and the modulated flow are one and the same in the case of a one way valve). All that is just to say that we can kind of think of a valve as the simplest cybernetic system, ie sensor + actuator. And on the other hand, like you suggested, we can probably boil any cybernetic system down into a network of valves in some abstract sense, things that receive flows modulate them (whether discretely or continuously, analog or digital, soft or wet or hard or dry), and route them according to other signals, etc etc
- perilunar 2y ago
  Vacuum tubes (i.e. thermionic vacuum tubes) are 'electronic valves', at least in British english.