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Simple Computation Using Dominos

An anonymous reader writes "When silicon fails to beat Moores law, maybe dominos can help. This guy has created a half adder in dominos as a proof of concept for domino computation. If he intends to make a full domino computer he's going to need an awful lot of dominos."

131 comments

  1. Yes but... by MrNaz · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was going to say "Yea but does it run Linux?", but I thought I could avoid the resulting -1 Redundant mod down to hell by saying "Yea, but are there Vista drivers for it?" instead.

    --
    I hate printers.
    1. Re:Yes but... by MrShaggy · · Score: 2, Funny

      in soviet Russia, adders halfvyou!

      --
      I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
    2. Re:Yes but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Gee, let me try:

      I was going to say "I wonder if their web server is running on dominos... which fell over already"

      "Another crippling bombshell: Netcraft confirms it, domino computers are falling over"

      "Imagine a cluster of dominos standing on end, ready to fall over"

      "I don't see what you like about OS X. My falling dominos copied a large file in seconds, while my OS X machine has been grinding away for the past 30 years"

      "In Soviet Russia, *you* fall over"

      "dominos: naked and covered in grits" (if you don't get this one, you must be new here... you insensitive clod)

      <meta>Let me be just get it out of the way: here are all the tired Slashdot cliche jokes done in one post</meta> (itself a tired joke! and pointing it out is tired too! come to think of it, I'm tired.)

    3. Re:Yes but... by drcagn · · Score: 1

      Is there a version of Doom ported to this architecture?

      --
      Scorta futuere amo!
    4. Re:Yes but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      But of course. It's called Doominos. In fact, in Doominos 3 id left an easter egg in it. It reveals the answer to life, the Universe, and everything.

      On the very last level of the game, as you descend the candlelit cavern toward the final boss, take a left at the fork in the path. Find the id Software logo in the back corner. Approach and click your mouse button on the id logo. You'll hear a distinctive "beep" sound. A nearby wall opens to reveal a hidden chamber. The PDA on the altar simply reads "42".

    5. Re:Yes but... by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 1

      It's meme-rific! All this nostalgia reminded me of the old "Gnulix" flamebait of yore...

    6. Re:Yes but... by aldo.gs · · Score: 4, Funny

      1. Try to cite every tired joke.
      2. Miss this one.
      3. ????
      4. Profit!

    7. Re:Yes but... by RESPAWN · · Score: 1

      "dominos: naked and covered in grits" (if you don't get this one, you must be new here... you insensitive clod) Wow. I haven't seen the Natalie Portman and Grits joke in a loooooong time.

      I think the only "joke" you missed was linking to a redirect page to a Goatse bomb. Can't say I miss those days, though.

      (Posting without +1 Karma becuase I know that this is straying waaaaay OT)
      --

      If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.

    8. Re:Yes but... by AndroidCat · · Score: 4, Funny

      Just wait until they get it all setup for a run, go to lunch, and come back to find that Schrodinger's Cat might have been in the room!

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    9. Re:Yes but... by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      I don't know, I just wanted to run my Lotus Domino server on it.

    10. Re:Yes but... by Punch-Drunk+Slob · · Score: 1

      Alternate: Yes, but can it do a Black Adder? har har.

      --
      By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes: Open, locks, whoever knocks!
    11. Re:Yes but... by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      Wierd... I had this exact same idea (building digital logic using dominos) after reading an article of somebody doing digital logic with water, right here on Slashdot.

      I never got further than some constructs which would require a customized domino, though.

      Too bad TFA is already slashdotted; would have loved to see how he handled dominos staying up because others fell; the NAND.

      --
      Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    12. Re:Yes but... by Sillygates · · Score: 1

      It's probably too slow....with the CPI up in the trillions :(

      --
      I fear the Y2038 bug
    13. Re:Yes but... by n1hilist · · Score: 1

      I was going to suggest a Beowulf cluster but I'd rather not get the -1 redundant post too. So I'm going to make the quirky and even more redundant post about not installing Windows on it at all, because when Windows falls over, it really is going to fall over.

    14. Re:Yes but... by MarkKB · · Score: 1

      Actually, I think it's "In Soviet Russia, dominos knock over YOU!"

    15. Re:Yes but... by bhima · · Score: 1

      In Korea, only old people use Dominos.

      Man, I can't believe I just said that... I'm going for a shower.

      --
      Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
    16. Re:Yes but... by LarsG · · Score: 1

      Yes, but idspispopd doesn't work.

      --
      If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
    17. Re:Yes but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This horse is already dead...in Japan!

    18. Re:Yes but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And: In Korea, only old people play dominoes.

      And: I for one welcome our domino computer overlords.

  2. Conceptually, it reminds me of by TheCouchPotatoFamine · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A turing version of conway's game of life. But on reflection, if the "dominos" were something like charged nanotubes, then the creation of computing structures could be "grown" in a much different way then current cpu's, kind of think that's neat.

    --
    CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
    1. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Would you happen to know what the biggest grid of conway ever simulated is? and for how long? I was trying to find stats on this a month or so ago..

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    2. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 4, Interesting

      According to here:

      Andrzej Okrasinski has found a new methuselah record holder, a 15 bit intial pattern with a final population of 1623 after 29053 generations. David Bell quickly found a 13 cell predecessor, bringing the record to 29055.

    3. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by QuantumG · · Score: 1

      Yep, pretty interesting, not what I was thinking about though. The population of random soups in Life are also
      expected to grow without bound if they are large enough, but only with a vastly large starting size.. analysing soups of extremely large size seems more interesting than studying soups of small size, so I was wondering what the biggest grid size anyone has simulated was. You'd figure we'd be able to do interesting soup sizes by now.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    4. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by Fweeky · · Score: 1

      Using Golly and a perfectly reasonable desktop computer, I just loaded a ~128k-sq grid with a starting population of roughly 100 million and ran it for 700 million iterations inside about half a minute, so I'm going to bet: pretty big.

    5. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by QuantumG · · Score: 1

      damn, you must have a fast machine.. my 2.61GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual with 4 gig of ram claims it is going to take over an hour and a half just to fill 128k-sq with random.. I can only imagine how long it is going to take to simulate.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    6. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by caseih · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On my FC6 box, I did yum install lucidlife, and found, to my surprise, that the turing machine pattern is in it, under "Math and CS." Now if only I could figure out what it is supposed to do! :)

    7. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by zobier · · Score: 1

      prolly 358^2 not 128000^2

      --
      Me lost me cookie at the disco.
    8. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by hobdes · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I haven't kept up with the research but about 12 years ago I ran a simulation out to 200000x200000. I used a linked list data structure rather than an array to store the data since the typical density of live sites in GL is pretty low (~3%). If you're interested check out Fig 3.27 (page 69) of my MSc thesis.</blatant self-promotion> As I recall it took around 3 months to run on one of the latest Sparcstations at the time.

    9. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by hasdikarlsam · · Score: 1

      Using golly, I've run the Metacatacryst pattern to 10^11 generations in a matter of minutes, at which point it contained ~10^14 active cells and covered an area of (~10^11)^2 cells. On a common laptop computer - algorithms have improved. :)

      This probably is not a great feat these days, but it is quite beautiful to look at. There also exist (rather large) patterns that simulate life /in/ life.

    10. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by Fweeky · · Score: 1

      Heh, not really; Opteron 185, 2GB. The pattern was a set of highly repetitive smaller CA's (not unlike this); hash based algorithms are *really* good at accelerating "big" CA's like this.

    11. Re:Conceptually, it reminds me of by spun · · Score: 1

      I've done random soups of around five million starting live cells, 10,000 cells on a side at 5% density. That's nowhere near big enough to find any naturally occurring patterns that grow without bounds, though.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  3. Slight problem.. by QuantumG · · Score: 0, Redundant

    they're one use only gates... you'd need a hell of a big layout just to execute an add of a few bits.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
    1. Re:Slight problem.. by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Funny

      they're one use only gates

      Nonesense, they're perfectly reusable! You only need to watch out for a metastability period* of 10 minutes between clocks.

      * To reset the dominos, of course.
    2. Re:Slight problem.. by QuantumG · · Score: 1

      I wonder if there's a way to do self standing dominos.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    3. Re:Slight problem.. by Walt+Dismal · · Score: 2, Funny

      ... Domino Viagra ...

    4. Re:Slight problem.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Perhaps some kind of an electromagnetic surface could be used, with one end of each domino having some iron embedded... After the dominoes have toppled, hit a switch that turns on a magnet that pulls them into little slots which turns them upright.

      (captcha: delirium ...)

    5. Re:Slight problem.. by SQLGuru · · Score: 1

      You could do something similar to the Guess Who game to make it easier to reset. Go from 10 minutes down to seconds.....but save that for version 2....no sense trying to jump Moore's law.

      http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B00000IWDR /ref=dp_images_1/104-9632234-2647149?ie=UTF8&s=toy s-and-games&img=1&childASIN=B00000IWDR

      Layne

    6. Re:Slight problem.. by iamstretchypanda · · Score: 2, Funny
      Attention fellow slashdotters!

      You know you can't get laid when you:
      1. Make a 'computer' out of dominoes
      2. Start making jokes about it
      3. Realize you spend your day on a website where other people find those same jokes funny
      4. Decide a group of dominoes could use an electromagnetic surface and embedded iron to maybe run linux

      I also think it's funny when Joe /.er talks about his girlfriend Sally, we all try to pretend he isn't just talking about his right hand he named. :p

      Feel free to mod me down, but this applies to me just as much as you
    7. Re:Slight problem.. by tepples · · Score: 1

      I wonder if there's a way to do self standing dominos. Would it have anything to do with Weebles, which wobble but don't fall down?
    8. Re:Slight problem.. by pingoart · · Score: 1

      i think that the problem with them would be the huge energy losses... dominoes have stored energy, and weebles do not.

  4. Apparently... by jazzman251 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Apparently the server uses dominoes...

    1. Re:Apparently... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian and Zaphod Beeblebrox borrowed the dominoes to work on the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

    2. Re:Apparently... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian and Zaphod Beeblebrox borrowed the dominoes to work on the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.


      Should have added "while Bob Dylan sings in the background."
  5. Domino puzzle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is the maximum amount of data that you can store in a standard set of dominoes,
    assuming the read mechanism only can read back the top and bottom numbers.

  6. Domino Logic by TheSexican · · Score: 4, Informative

    This really isn't such an interesting story at all. There is, in fact, a type of CMOS logic called Domino Logic. So nothing really suprising then.

    --
    Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
    1. Re:Domino Logic by kevinmc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Here's another site with an explanation of domino logic using real dominos: http://www.pinkandaint.com/oldhome/comp/dominoes/i ndex.html

    2. Re:Domino Logic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The return of DTL, Domino Toppling Logic.

  7. The internet: A series of dominos? by jdp816 · · Score: 0

    Now some senator is going to blather about this...

  8. Rebooting... by Anubis350 · · Score: 4, Funny

    No matter how fast he could ever make, rebooting is gonna be one PITA!

    --
    "goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
    1. Re:Rebooting... by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 1

      No Anubis. Very few programs are run live, it's a terrible strain on the domino stackers wrists.

  9. From the looks of things... by Arceliar · · Score: 2, Funny

    If servers were dominoes, slashdot must be that big and slightly smelly kid who kicks down all your hard work just as you're about to show it off.

  10. Videos on YouTube by ikegami · · Score: 5, Informative

    The site might be down, but the videos are on YouTubte

    inputs = 0 & 1
    inputs = 1 & 0
    inputs = 1 & 1

    1. Re:Videos on YouTube by bidule · · Score: 4, Funny


      WTF! You slashdotted YouTube!

      --
      ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
    2. Re:Videos on YouTube by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And now, I'm going to say something really stupid, and I don't quite understand why what I'm about to say is stupid. Here goes:

      "He didn't build a domino computer, he just has a domino setup whose results under one interpretation coincide with what a half-adder gives you. It's trivial to build any kind of mechanism that can do this."

      Now, rhetorically bitch-slap me.

    3. Re:Videos on YouTube by AlgorithMan · · Score: 1

      inputs = 0 & 1
      inputs = 1 & 0
      inputs = 1 & 1
      so, what about inputs 0 & 0?
      I won't believe that this thing works until he also shows that result! ;-)
      --
      The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
    4. Re:Videos on YouTube by CalSolt · · Score: 1

      I fail to see a difference. If it acts like a computer- that is, it computes- then it IS a computer. Or does a computer HAVE to have electrons running through it?

    5. Re:Videos on YouTube by Stauf · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not really stupid, but consider - a half-adder is trivial; and an electronic half-adder is just a few wires that when electricity is applied produces the result you would expect from a half-adder.

    6. Re:Videos on YouTube by honkycat · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't say it's stupid, I would say it's actually a fairly deep sort of question about the nature of computation.

      I suspect the reason that you, at least hypothetically, don't see this domino arrangement as a "computer" is that it's both a very trivial computer and it's not suited for scaling into a non-trivial computer by adding more copies. Otherwise, this is not THAT different from a standard electronic circuit. Both are physical systems whose outputs coincide with logical operations. By arranging their "inputs" and interpreting their final physical state according to some rule, you can determine the outcome of some other physical process that is at least approximately logically/mathematically equivalent to the computation you performed.

      There's also the matter that this physical system needs maintenance after every computation, but that's not so different from a vacuum tube computer -- it's just a matter of degree of fragility. :-)

    7. Re:Videos on YouTube by had3z · · Score: 1

      that's cool and all, but what about 0 & 0?

    8. Re:Videos on YouTube by SuperIan22 · · Score: 1

      Well, no, of course it's not an actual computer, and it really wouldn't be useful to build a computer out of dominoes. Of course it's kind of pointless, tons of neat things are fairly pointless. But there is something very useful about little demonstrations like this. If you've already got a good grasp of basic computing concepts, it's kind of a big yawn, but for kids who are just learning about a computer's innards, it's simple examples like this that can generate "AHA!" moments. Most people out there haven't the slightest clue what happens inside their computer. To them it might as well be magic. With a good teacher, and some simple examples like this (or another good one would be the 4 bit water adder that was posted here a little while ago) can really help these concepts become easier to understand.

    9. Re:Videos on YouTube by BarryNorton · · Score: 1

      Yes it is a deep question, but the answer was found many decades ago. The answer is that this is computation, but it's not a device capable of universal computation.

    10. Re:Videos on YouTube by honkycat · · Score: 1

      True enough, but it at least means it wasn't a dumb question, especially for someone not familiar with computer science.

    11. Re:Videos on YouTube by honkycat · · Score: 1

      Oh, and one other thought... remember that the idea of universal computing is founded on the Church-Turing thesis which is an unprovable hypothesis. Basically, it defines computability as the quality of being something that a Turing machine-equivalent can compute. It's quite possible that there are problems outside this class that can be "computed" but not by a Turing machine equivalent. This is the sort of thing that might be discovered by cleverly forgetting a few of the fundamental things we know about computability and revisiting the basic axioms. Thus, it's actually quite valuable to periodically revisit a basic question like that the GP raised -- there might be somewhere new you can go if you think about it in a different way.

      Not that this is likely, but you never know... no harm in thinking about it, anyway.

  11. No No No was:Re:Yes but... by Anubis350 · · Score: 1

    "In Soviet Russia, *you* fall over" In Soviet Russia, *you* are the domino, and you pushed over by the state in giant cold war social computer! Domino, the new Cog :-P

    --
    "goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
  12. tag it, please by ryen · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    will someone please tag this defectivebydesign.
    damn domino computing monopolies

  13. It explains Notes by Ritchie70 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I didn't realize that Notes servers use real Dominoes, it explains their awful performance and quirkiness.

    --
    The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
    1. Re:It explains Notes by WS+Tu · · Score: 1

      In my Slackware+Firefox, it took me 5 minutes or so on "Loading Page" and then gave me a "The connection was reset".

      Althrough not quick at all, it is really quirk at all.

  14. Solves for x in 30 minutes or less by Teresita · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm afraid this will open up a half-adder gap with the Deep South. In Alabama, it's illegal to play dominoes on Sunday. (www.dumblaws.com)

    1. Re:Solves for x in 30 minutes or less by VeNoM0619 · · Score: 1
      I highly doubt the credibility of that site:

      Dumb Laws in Illinois:
      You may be arrested for vagrancy if you do not have at least one dollar bill on your person.
      You must contact the police before entering the city in an automobile.
      The English language is not to be spoken.
      --
      Disclaimer: I am not god.
      We may not be created equal
      But we can be treated equal.
  15. Quantum Dot Cellular Automata by googlebear · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This kinda reminds me of Quantum Dot Cellular Automata. multivalence compounds are arranged like dominos and one of the "electrons" at one of the ends is shifted to represent the zero or one state and then the electron repulsion forces in the molecules propegate down the chain like dominos acting like adders whathave you. http://www.nd.edu/~qcahome/ -ian

  16. He Cheated! by haakondahl · · Score: 5, Informative

    Watch the 1+1 video, and you'll see that the stacked dominoes are actually glued together! No fair!


    Details: His right hand pushes over a domino chain which knocks out a link needed to complete the left-hand output. But in order to reach the chain for the left-hand output, he crosses the chain for the right-hand output, which then has a gap. This gap is bridged by GLUING a yellow domino on top of a red one, on top of a blue one.

    --
    Don't trust anyone under thirty.
    1. Re:He Cheated! by noz · · Score: 2, Funny

      And you've got too much spare time on your hands.

    2. Re:He Cheated! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hi,

      The folks on the following page have devised a technique to avoid gluing the dominos together.

      http://www.pinkandaint.com/oldhome/comp/dominoes/i ndex.html

    3. Re:He Cheated! by Mal-2 · · Score: 1

      Even if it's cheating to alter dominoes, it's not cheating to use the same tactic in nanomachines. It will increase complexity to have one piece completely different from all the others, but it's not cheating to use all the options you are given.

      Mal-2

      --
      How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
    4. Re:He Cheated! by jmp · · Score: 1

      Cheated? What are the rules? Which ones did he break?

      --
      jmp
    5. Re:He Cheated! by kyb · · Score: 1

      True, but those guys needed loads of extra sync lines. Not very friendly.

  17. Cute by overshoot · · Score: 1

    Of course, we've been using domino logic for a long time.

    --
    Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
    1. Re:Cute by TheSexican · · Score: 1

      See, I made a similar comment earlier and got modded down by some haters. But maybe your link is better than mine.

      --
      Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
  18. Dominoes? by I+don't+want+to+spen · · Score: 3, Informative

    I thought most computers (or the people who run them anyway) ran on Dominoes, Pizza Hut ... (insert your country's major delivery pizza chain here)

    --
    Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
    1. Re:Dominoes? by Nasarius · · Score: 2, Funny

      What geek likes bland, undersized, overpriced pizza?

      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
  19. Well, i know what would be fun to play with by TheCouchPotatoFamine · · Score: 2, Informative

    unfortunatly, i have a mac mini aka 4 shaders.. but this screensaver lets you use the video card to do it, so i imagine it's fun to look at.

    I just did a search, i didn't find anything about the largest. FWIW i'd LOVE to see the turing version in this screensaver :grin:

    --
    CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
  20. You forgot one by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let me be just get it out of the way: here are all the tired Slashdot cliche jokes done in one post (itself a tired joke! and pointing it out is tired too! come to think of it, I'm tired.)
    Rest
    Cancel or Allow?
    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
    1. Re:You forgot one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Rest
      Cancel or Allow?


      Real geeks don't use rest or soap.

  21. It's rigged I'd say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rigged. Wonder how many takes he did to get it right. Also in the 0+1 adder he flicks it harder than 1+0, any reason why????

  22. .5+.5=1? by somethinghollow · · Score: 1

    If he intends to make a full domino computer he's going to need an awful lot of dominos.

    Like twice as many more? Or does 1/2 adder + 1/2 adder != 1 full adder?

    At least he didn't make a death adder.

    1. Re:.5+.5=1? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      It's called a "half adder" because it doesn't have a carry bit input, only a carry bit output. With a half adder you can only add 1-bit numbers; with a full adder you can add arbitrary precision binary numbers (in serial).

    2. Re:.5+.5=1? by kperson · · Score: 1

      At least he didn't make a death adder.

      Or Blackadder.

    3. Re:.5+.5=1? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i wouldnt mind a BlackAdder

    4. Re:.5+.5=1? by onemorechip · · Score: 1

      Two half-adders (plus an OR gate to combine carries) make a full adder, but a "full adder" and a "full computer" are two completely different things. You can put together a bunch of full adders to make a multi-bit adder. Add more logic to perform subtractions, shifts, plus logical and, or, and not operations, and you've got a nice little ALU. Now add some registers, a control store, instruction decoding logic, and a sequencer (complete with conditional branching logic), and you've got a CPU. And to build a computer, add memory and some kind of I/O.

      I'd call that a good bit more than twice as many dominos.

      --
      But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
  23. You forgot one too by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 1

    Don't forget Poland.

  24. VERY old news by AlgorithMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In computer science study (3rd semester) We have learned that the 2-dimensional infinite domino problem is indecidable

    this is because for any turing machine you can design dominos such that you can legally cover the infinite 2-dimensional plane if and only if the turing machine terminates...

    so this is nothing new - I guess... I didn't RTFA, but what I read sounds exactly like that...

    --
    The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
  25. I had the same idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    I had the very same idea back in 1998, and I would have beaten this guy to it except:

    1. I didn't have a shitload of dominoes
    2. I had no place to set up a shitload of dominoes
    3. I don't know how to build a half-adder out of dominoes :-P

    1. Re:I had the same idea! by orkysoft · · Score: 1, Funny

      Well, if you've watched the videos, you'd have seen that your points (1) and (2) have no merit, except for very small values of "shitload".

      --

      I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
  26. I for one.... by LordFocus · · Score: 1

    welcome our new Domino overlords.

    1. Re:I for one.... by SEWilco · · Score: 1

      ... delivering half-adders in 30 minutes.

  27. alright, forget it by AlgorithMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    okay, after I saw it as a (not slashdotted *g*) video on youtube, i have to say: this has absolutely nothing to do with what I was talking about...

    --
    The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
  28. You can also build a nondeterministic computer by Bob+Hearn · · Score: 1

    out of dominoes. That is, if I give you a sliding-block puzzle, where the blocks are all dominoes laid flat in a box, and to goal is to slide one a certain way, that puzzle is a kind of nondeterministic computer.

    Details: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rah/ncl-tcs.pdf

  29. Re: you FALL it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "dominos: naked and covered in grits" (if you don't get this one, you must be new here... you insensitive clod)
    Dude! It was Keira Knightley who played Domino Harvey, not Natalie Portman.

    Granted, Keira is significantly hotter than Natalie, but that doesn't forgive the attempted ruination of one of Slashdot's oldest memes!

    You FALL it.
  30. Domino Time! by PopeZaphod · · Score: 1

    But is he using any Vaz?

    --
    ->
  31. Re:Still faster..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He dickhead, why do you have to fucking always bag MS...
    stale joke

  32. Could make a brainfuck processor! by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 1

    A while ago I started with the physical implementation of a brainfuck machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck. A mechanical brainfucker is actually not too hard to do if you compile the BF into the right patterns first.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  33. Re:Still faster..... by BSDetector · · Score: 0

    He is like the majority here. But note that his "wisdom" and "wit" earns him a score of 1. I'll wallow in the ZERO world.

  34. IBM's domino computer by simdan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    IBM actually did some research into using what amounted to molecular dominos for computing. It worked pretty fast, but they literally had to set it up on molecule at a time, and you thought dominos were a pain. They too predict that it might replace transistors. Read more about it here.

    1. Re:IBM's domino computer by ebers · · Score: 1

      I saw Don Eigler present this work. Dominoes were also his analogy. As I remember it was pretty slow, with gates taking many microseconds. Most frustrating was the fact that it was one-shot, with many tedious hours following each computation to rebuild. However, it was amazingly small and very fun to watch.

  35. What is the big deal.. by toygar.ozturk · · Score: 1

    What is the big deal, it is only a half-adder. Not even a full one.

    1. Re:What is the big deal.. by WS+Tu · · Score: 1

      I can not read the article. But if they built a half-adder, they can just cascade 2 half adder and got a full-adder.

      In fact, at first I guessed I would see the domino logic in VLSI design http://www.princeton.edu/~wolf/modern-vlsi/Overhea ds/CHAP3-4/sld013.htm

  36. Next thing you know... by discHead · · Score: 2, Funny
  37. Moo by Chacham · · Score: 1

    Dominoes, a new technology?

    Next thing you know, IBM will have a Domino Server.

  38. So... by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    So, you're saying it's a Domino server?

  39. Turing complete? by mgiuca · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I assume that Dominos aren't (and will never be) turing complete...?

    I mean, each domino can fall over only once. So while you can do an adder, I'm not sure you could really get a for loop going.

    1. Re:Turing complete? by rbarreira · · Score: 2

      You can get them up again, but of course you need energy for that. You also need energy for running an electronic computer.

      --

      The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
    2. Re:Turing complete? by mgiuca · · Score: 1

      But then it isn't really using dominos for the turing completeness, is it?

    3. Re:Turing complete? by rbarreira · · Score: 1

      Maybe you're right, but in that case, you also think that just starting the dominos (which clearly is done by an external force) is enough to make it non-turing complete?

      --

      The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
  40. Where are the mirrors by segafreak · · Score: 1

    I Know this isn't directly on topic, but for the gazillionth time I get to an article a few hours after it makes Slashdot, and surprise surprise the link is dead because of the Slashdot Effect. I really feel its time slashdot stopped mindlessly killing people's webservers with sheer wight of traffic - if its clearly a small website, why not mirror it?

    --
    "Everlasting peace will come to Earth when the last man kills the last but one." - Adolf Hitler
    1. Re:Where are the mirrors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I really feel it's time that you stopped mindlessly ignoring the comments on this webserver with the sheer weight of your ineptitude - if the videos are clearly linked in the comments, why not view them?

      There are copyright issues with mirroring.

    2. Re:Where are the mirrors by zuiraM · · Score: 1

      Because, that would defeat the purpose of having a handy DDoS-from-hell service around where anyone can anonymously hit tech targets they dislike with 1 day downtime.

  41. Yeah but they use... by Traf-O-Data-Hater · · Score: 1

    ...good old-fashioned silicon, not a briefcase substrate like this guy does. And like silicon, you can dope a briefcase too!

  42. Or maybe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "As if millions of dominoes fell over and were suddenly silenced."

  43. Re:Still faster..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You guys are butt-hurt, it was a joke. You could for instance say "Still easier to use than Linux" as a retort, rather than modding him down and whining.

  44. High speed processing by Compunexus · · Score: 1

    Great! But is only does one FLOP!

  45. My server... by guruevi · · Score: 1

    My server already runs Domino, why is he re-implementing this?

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  46. race condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is it just me or is there a bit of a race condition in the 11 case?

  47. Mac equivalent by rHBa · · Score: 1

    If we're going to replace our PCs with Dominoes would we replace our Macs with Pizza Expresses?

    (Sorry, not very funny but nobody else had said it)