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Lego Logic Gates

Posted by timothy on from the three-little-words dept.

Thud457 writes "LEGO Logic Gates - It's like Babbage, but with bricks. All the gates except XOR are here, and he goes on to develop a clocked flip-flop. While practical mechanical computers may be out, even at the nanotechnological scale, nanomechanical memory may be in. "

9 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Lego-4 3 GHz, here we come! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    'Tis but a small step to a 64-bit processor with 2 MB of cache. Of course, the bricks might burn up upon power-up, but it's a small price to pay!

    1. Re:Lego-4 3 GHz, here we come! by Idarubicin · · Score: 4, Funny
      Hmmm...3 GHz...

      Since the push/pull distance for the gate outputs described is about one LEGO stud length, or 8 millimeters.

      At 3 GHz we have a cycle every 3e-10 seconds (~300 picoseconds), and so a mean speed of 8 mm / 300 ps, or nearly 25 million meters per second. That's nearly 10% of the speed of light, so you're going to have to watch out for relativistic effects. :D

      I don't know the mass of the LEGO axles used in the figure, but if they're 5 grams apiece, then each would have a kinetic energy of about 1.5 terajoules. That's about the same as the kinetic energy possessed by a Nimitz class aircraft carrier travelling at 300 knots.

      If you think P4s have heat dissipation issues....

      --
      ~Idarubicin
  2. Memory Error - brick not found, restart? (y/n) by flumps · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... just as long as we don't get a little lego man instead of that bloody paperclip I don't really care

    --
    "So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
  3. Will BSD run on it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Let us know when theres a NetBSD for it so we can build a LegoLAN

  4. Dudududupe by Repugnant_Shit · · Score: 3, Funny

    Next, CmdrTaco will build a duplicate article out of Dupe-lo blocks!

    --
    Vote for global prefs bug
  5. Re:cool by flumps · · Score: 5, Funny

    Have you seen the size of these things? Putting them in any kind of robot would be kinda stupid.

    "Here I am, brain the size of a planet...made out of lego.."

    I think you'd have more luck with the nano versions of these gates. But good luck trying eh :)

    --
    "So there he is, risen from the dead. Like that fella, E. T." - Father Ted Crilly
  6. "Apple iBricks Launch delayed by goldcd · · Score: 3, Funny

    and projected power decimated."
    A spokesman said Steve would only use the white bits of Lego.

  7. Speed? by the_Twisted · · Score: 3, Funny

    At how many (K)hz will this thing operate when it's finished? How many FLOPS will it achieve? Could you overclock it by adding oliveoil to the gears?

  8. Re:cool by nospmiS+remoH · · Score: 5, Funny

    I for one welcome our new EMP proof lego robot overlords.

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    !hoD