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Home-Built Turing Machine

Posted by Soulskill on from the i'll-order-a-dozen dept.

stronghawk writes "The creator of the Nickel-O-Matic is back at it and has now built a Turing Machine from a Parallax Propeller chip-based controller, motors, a dry-erase marker and a non-infinite supply of shiny 35mm leader film. From his FAQ: 'While thinking about Turing machines I found that no one had ever actually built one, at least not one that looked like Turing's original concept (if someone does know of one, please let me know). There have been a few other physical Turing machines like the Logo of Doom, but none were immediately recognizable as Turing machines. As I am always looking for a new challenge, I set out to build what you see here.'"

7 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. hmmm by Denihil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    maybe i'm missing something but i'm used to people talking about "turing machines" as a machine that is "turing-complete", not looking like a hypothetical turing machine he described in his paper. Is this aesthetics over the principle he meant it to be taken by? Cool hardhack though btw, love to have one of those on my coffee table.

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  2. Re:Cool...I think. by 91degrees · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't think it has been done before though. At least not as a hardware implementation. The reason being that while it's an interesting hypohetical machine, it's extremely inefficient means of computing anything. But it is very nice to actually see a visualisation of such a machine

  3. Technically... by Corporate+Troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Purely technically, a Turing Machine that hasn't infinite tapes is simply a Finite State Machine. You cannot build a "real" Turing Machine. Doesn't make his creation less interesting though :-)

  4. Re: I found that no one had ever actually built on by Corporate+Troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And you'd be wrong.... Computers are Finite State Machines with an insane number of states.

  5. All in the head? by s-gen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A turing machine isn't just the head and the tape, its those things plus a state transition table. The microcontroller is doing the state transition table part.

  6. Re: I found that no one had ever actually built on by hoggoth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Incorrect. The keyboard, mouse, and audio input insure it is indeed a Turing machine with infinite input.

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  7. Setting aside the Turing stuff... by HotNeedleOfInquiry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The hardware is very elegant and well-done. The guy is a multi-talented geek of the highest order.

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