IRL Turing Machine

[Triple Zero]

this guy built a turing machine.

http://www.aturingmachine.com/

the awesome thing is that he built it using all sorts of electronics and servo motors and a felt tip whiteboard marker and a really really long (1000 meters?) roll of plastic strip on which a robot arm writes ones and zeroes.

he built it in this way to mimic the idea, or the image of the machine in Alan Turing's original paper, written in the early 20th century.

even though it doesn't have a lot of brass gears and such, it's probably the most true steampunk thing I have ever seen.

check the video, seriously.

PS if you don't know what a Turing Machine is (it does not have anything to do with the Turing Test, except for the inventor), then you might not be able to appreciate the awesome of this project. sorry.

[Rumckle]

Cool!

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

This is pretty neat.

Did you see the various ones made of legos? I think the arabic-style ones and zeros make this cooler, though.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So that even the plebes can appreciate this: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TuringMachine.html

[Brotep]

http://www.geekosystem.com/dwarf-fortress-turing-machine-computer/

[Reginald Ret]

http://www.geekosystem.com/dwarf-fortress-turing-machine-computer/

build a computer capable of running dwarf fortress within dwarf fortress, then build an 8 bit computer in the dwarf fortress running on the computer in dwarf fortress.

HAHAHHAAHAAAAA!

[Requia ☣]

A dwarf fortress based VM

Brilliant!

Also, I thought a real turing machine would require an infinite amount of memory?

[Brotep]

 

Also, I thought a real turing machine would require an infinite amount of memory?

Well, it's just a Turing Machine with a tape of finite length, as any real-world implementation must be.

I can't remember the difference between a Turing Machine and a Finite-State Machine, but I thought the latter couldn't write to the tape...?

[Triple Zero]

Also, I thought a real turing machine would require an infinite amount of memory?

yes and no. a true turing machine, capable of solving any turing-computable problem would require an infinite amount of memory.

however, any arbitrary turing-computable problem only requires a bounded finite amount of memory. so in practice you can always use a finite tape, as long as you make sure there is enough for the problem you set out to run.

The tape in the machine is a 1000' roll of white 35mm film leader. The characters are written by the machine with a black dry erase marker. Each character cell is 1.125" in width. Although the tape is not infinite in length, it is long enough for any practical use and can hold approximately 10K bits worth of binary data.

so you can't solve problems with it that require more than 10 kbits of working memory. but you can always give it a bigger tape.