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Water Computing

Posted by michael on from the wetware dept.

Andrew_Cronin writes "This is a nice project that some one did at MIT on building some logic computation systems without using electrons.. So why not use water..."

2 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. My 0.02 Mesta... by 403Forbidden · · Score: 2, Redundant

    So why not use water..."

    Well, since the site is already slashdotted (only the title is showing up for me) i'll have to use all the power of my brain to guesstimate.

    Why not use water? The answer is simple really. If you can use such liquids to proform logical computations then it would be adventageous to use a liquid with a VERY high boiling point to prevent all your data from boiling off into steam...

    Hmmm... I can see it now "that data has to be uncompressed into steam, heat it up a bit."

  2. why not use air? by stratjakt · · Score: 0, Redundant

    This is just a big pile of hydraulic logic that forms some gates, and ultimately a 4 bit adder. Thats hardly a computer, but pretty neat.

    We had a pneumatic logic kit bouncing around the electronics shop in high school.. I dusted it off and made pretty much the same thing, using compressed air. It was more fun to play with than 7400 series ICs and breadboards.

    Though I didn't machine the parts like this guy did. I guess thats whats impressive. The U shaped spill collector is novel, if sloppy. Dunno whats wrong with valves.

    Hydraulic/pneumatic logic is nothing new. Even if you call it "fluidics".

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!