From: "Airy R. Bean" Newsgroups: sci.math,alt.folklore.computers Subject: Mechanical Turing Machine? Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 12:41:23 -0000 Lines: 11 Message-ID: <31b5d1F39kcfqU1@individual.net> X-Trace: individual.net MiS7JLyyG61evRL/dnyk+Q2aePnsK/S7OzSYZUXaAvR6iPCNpD X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:191067 I'm looking for information on any previous designs for a mechanical Turing Machine, i.e., a machine fabricated in the technology that Turing would have had available at the time of his thesis. I have conceived of a method for the (semi) infinite tape using techniques from clock-making, but I'm interested in seeing designs for a reprogrammable state-machine in mechanics. ###### From: David R Brooks Newsgroups: sci.math,alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Mechanical Turing Machine? Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 07:53:13 +0800 Message-ID: References: <31b5d1F39kcfqU1@individual.net> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.92/32.572 X-No-Archive: yes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 21 NNTP-Posting-Host: 203.59.202.25 X-Trace: 1102118008 per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au 25764 203.59.202.25 Path: nightfall.franklin.ch!pfaff2.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!switch.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.iinet.net.au!newsfeed.iinet.net.au!per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au!not-for-mail Xref: nightfall.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:191107 In 1936, Turing would not have been limited to mechanics. The relay had been known 100 years, and telephone people were building quite elaborate systems with them, as well as laying the foundations of formal switching theory. (Which was in turn, the basis for the wartime machines Turning worked on). The "Eccles-Jordan" flipflop (bistable) had been described in 1919, so vacuum-tube logic was also known. "Airy R. Bean" wrote: :I'm looking for information on any previous designs :for a mechanical Turing Machine, i.e., a machine :fabricated in the technology that Turing would have :had available at the time of his thesis. : :I have conceived of a method for the (semi) infinite :tape using techniques from clock-making, but I'm interested :in seeing designs for a reprogrammable state-machine :in mechanics. :