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Editing User:Larix
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[[User:Larix/Adder]] | [[User:Larix/Adder]] | ||
− | + | === Odds and Ends === | |
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− | == Odds and Ends == | ||
A collection of Dwarf Logic projects, ranging from an overengineered silly joke to overengineered solutions for simple problems or challenges to... overengineered overengineering: | A collection of Dwarf Logic projects, ranging from an overengineered silly joke to overengineered solutions for simple problems or challenges to... overengineered overengineering: | ||
− | + | == hq9+ Interpreter == | |
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: I am especially proud of the unary memory device. | : I am especially proud of the unary memory device. | ||
− | + | == The Drunk Number Generator == | |
* Dwarfs are always so sloshed that when they try to be random, they still just end up drunk. Their drunk stumbling around the meeting hall can be used to derive irresponsibly unpredictable signals, which in turn can be converted into apparently random numbers. Be careful when constructing such contraptions on your own computers, intoxicated computers can be quite difficult to handle. | * Dwarfs are always so sloshed that when they try to be random, they still just end up drunk. Their drunk stumbling around the meeting hall can be used to derive irresponsibly unpredictable signals, which in turn can be converted into apparently random numbers. Be careful when constructing such contraptions on your own computers, intoxicated computers can be quite difficult to handle. | ||
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: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129226.msg4452422#msg4452422 | : http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129226.msg4452422#msg4452422 | ||
− | + | == Security Blast Door == | |
* Do you lack the patience to wait a hundred steps for a pressure plate to re-set and close a door? Are you annoyed by dwarfs dragging their feet when ordered to pull the "close that door!" lever? No problem, you can get a door to close as reaction to an "on" signal, potentially in less than ten steps. It just takes ~400 power and 25 rollers and pressure plates and link jobs. | * Do you lack the patience to wait a hundred steps for a pressure plate to re-set and close a door? Are you annoyed by dwarfs dragging their feet when ordered to pull the "close that door!" lever? No problem, you can get a door to close as reaction to an "on" signal, potentially in less than ten steps. It just takes ~400 power and 25 rollers and pressure plates and link jobs. | ||
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: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128095.msg4449221#msg4449221 | : http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=128095.msg4449221#msg4449221 | ||
− | + | == Taming the diagonal Minecart == | |
* Just working out that diagonally-moving minecarts are notoriously unwilling to follow track directions only served as an incentive for me to step up my game and tame the wild diagonal minecart. I succeeded in getting such carts to stay in holding loops, cycle through repeaters and even hold a bit of information by their rotation direction in a read-writeable 'memory cell'. | * Just working out that diagonally-moving minecarts are notoriously unwilling to follow track directions only served as an incentive for me to step up my game and tame the wild diagonal minecart. I succeeded in getting such carts to stay in holding loops, cycle through repeaters and even hold a bit of information by their rotation direction in a read-writeable 'memory cell'. | ||
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: There's no need to use an extra minecart for every bit of memory you wish to store, a single minecart can hold a full byte of information. | : There's no need to use an extra minecart for every bit of memory you wish to store, a single minecart can hold a full byte of information. | ||
: Oh, and i got a rudimentary base-seven memory device or adder to work, based on regulating water depth and measuring it with pressure plates. | : Oh, and i got a rudimentary base-seven memory device or adder to work, based on regulating water depth and measuring it with pressure plates. | ||
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: '''Controlling diagonal minecarts'''; one-cart one-byte memory; seven-state fluid memory/potential base-seven adder? http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=131325.msg4621257#msg4621257 | : '''Controlling diagonal minecarts'''; one-cart one-byte memory; seven-state fluid memory/potential base-seven adder? http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=131325.msg4621257#msg4621257 | ||
− | + | == Multiplication with beyond-binary result calculation == | |
− | * Binary multiplication has a simple basis, but tends to get unwieldy because so many adders are needed to put all the partial results together. DF's mechanical logic, however, offers amazing options to compactify the adding-up process so that for a multiplication of two eight-bit numbers, no more than fifteen | + | * Binary multiplication has a simple basis, but tends to get unwieldy because so many adders are needed to put all the partial results together. DF's mechanical logic, however, offers amazing options to compactify the adding-up process so that for a multiplication of two eight-bit numbers, no more than fifteen addition steps are required. But how can this be, when up to sixty-four signals are generated before any addition takes place, and the addition is liable to produce twenty carries? Simple (or not so simple): by adding more than three signals in a single circuit. A load-based "how many inputs are on?" circuit can not only check against a defined threshold of inputs before switching off, by using the output-generating pressure plates to re-configure the circuit itself and thus change the load, it can check for different significant load limits in succession and enforce a stable state when the "correct" output is reached. |
− | : I endeavoured to make it more elegant by "pre-processing" the carries generated and unwittingly introduced another problem - the "resistor-based input counter" can process new inputs turning on, but will ignore inputs turning off during operation, something that | + | : I endeavoured to make it more elegant by "pre-processing" the carries generated and unwittingly introduced another problem - the "resistor-based input counter" can process new inputs turning on, but will ignore inputs turning off during operation, something that ''will'' happen in the course of preprocessing. Conservatively, this problem can be handled by not pre-processing the generated carries and just passing up to seven up to the next bit, meaning you'll have to handle up to fourteen in- and seven outputs. |
: Or you can build a "consistency check" routine into the resistance counter, which massively increases the parts count but adds a whole new level of elegance and potential for further use. Equipping a multiplier with the presented finalised "count to ten" circuit will likely use at least as many parts as a Wallace or Dadda (or un-organised old-school) adder to collate the partial results, but allows calculating all carries of a bit ''and'' its sum on the same circuit. | : Or you can build a "consistency check" routine into the resistance counter, which massively increases the parts count but adds a whole new level of elegance and potential for further use. Equipping a multiplier with the presented finalised "count to ten" circuit will likely use at least as many parts as a Wallace or Dadda (or un-organised old-school) adder to collate the partial results, but allows calculating all carries of a bit ''and'' its sum on the same circuit. | ||
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: '''Mechanical Multiplier (binary), 8x8 bits, with "single-pass" addition. As a possible improvement, the 0-10 Volume Meter''' | : '''Mechanical Multiplier (binary), 8x8 bits, with "single-pass" addition. As a possible improvement, the 0-10 Volume Meter''' | ||
: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=132977.0 | : http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=132977.0 | ||
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+ | == The Signal Grinder == | ||
: An unbeatably dwarven (and delicious) power-to-signal converter. | : An unbeatably dwarven (and delicious) power-to-signal converter. | ||
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: List of Materials: 1 millstone, 2 mechanisms, one chair, millable plant(s), empty bag(s). The chair can be deconstructed after priming the circuit, to recover materials. | : List of Materials: 1 millstone, 2 mechanisms, one chair, millable plant(s), empty bag(s). The chair can be deconstructed after priming the circuit, to recover materials. | ||
− | + | == Very compact incrementers and a collection of other computing components == | |
: The second post in a thread originally made to present a pseudo-random RNG using standard computing procedure - a linear-feedback shift register. During that construction, i got some ideas for smaller dwarven computing stuff, so went and built those, too. Some of them may be of practical use (as far as dwarven computing can be considered practical). | : The second post in a thread originally made to present a pseudo-random RNG using standard computing procedure - a linear-feedback shift register. During that construction, i got some ideas for smaller dwarven computing stuff, so went and built those, too. Some of them may be of practical use (as far as dwarven computing can be considered practical). | ||
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: The two designs of '''all-purpose logic gates''' are primarily concept demonstrations, to show what minecart computing is capable of. Each can distinguish the four possible states of two binary inputs accurately, using only two input devices/connections, which don't need reconfiguring for different logical conditions. | : The two designs of '''all-purpose logic gates''' are primarily concept demonstrations, to show what minecart computing is capable of. Each can distinguish the four possible states of two binary inputs accurately, using only two input devices/connections, which don't need reconfiguring for different logical conditions. | ||
− | : The '''memory cell''' is still more for showing off - there are compacter and more reliable powerless memory cells possible. The design shown | + | : The '''memory cell''' is still more for showing off - there are compacter and more reliable powerless memory cells possible. The design shown has been demonstrated to be a workable adressable memory cell which reliably acquires and holds an input after enabling, until reset, and can be read out to a memory buffer, which can be shared with other memory arrays. |
: The '''binary and ternary incrementer''' are ''very'' compact and to my knowledge perfectly reliable devices. I fully intend to use them in future projects. | : The '''binary and ternary incrementer''' are ''very'' compact and to my knowledge perfectly reliable devices. I fully intend to use them in future projects. | ||
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: Grab-bag of mechanical and minecart logic stuff, crammed into a thread full of weird computey things: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135141.msg4881573#msg4881573 | : Grab-bag of mechanical and minecart logic stuff, crammed into a thread full of weird computey things: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=135141.msg4881573#msg4881573 | ||
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+ | == Division by minecart collision == | ||
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+ | Since i successfully built devices to perform addition, subtraction and multiplication, i felt the need to complete my mastery of basic algebra by designing something that divides. This is notoriously difficult to achieve automatically, because to the best of my knowledge, binary division is a sort of iterative subtraction and there's no reasonable way to do this without a massively complicated processor, like the one shown in [[User:BaronW|The Almighty Dwarven Calculator]]. | ||
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+ | Since the reasonable way to do it would be to laboriously repeat a feat already achieved handily by someone else, i settled for an unreasonable way to do it: bashing minecarts together. In case you didn't know, bashing minecarts together is the new magma. If it's not the answer, the question has been formulated wrong. | ||
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+ | Since the output speed of a linear minecart collision is simply the speed of the incoming minecart, multiplied by its mass and then divided by the mass of the outgoing cart - capped at incoming speed itself - every such collision effectively performs a division. By choosing and changing weight and speed of the incoming cart, the dividend can be changed, and by selecting outgoing carts of different weights, different divisors can be chosen. By letting the outgoing cart run freely for a constant number of game steps, then stopping it, the output speed can be measured (in integer numbers). | ||
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+ | The entire complication of the device lies in selecting and combining carts and speeds to implement a sufficiently large range of divisions to run. You could of course just inscribe a huge lookup table of sample divisions into your fort's floor (or simply put it into the notes). My dividing machine's primary merit is making the looking-up of division results more entertaining through colliding minecarts. | ||
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+ | http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=15096.msg5129395#msg5129395 |