Month: June 2004

LEGO logic gates

looky

Basic boolean logic gates implemented in LEGO.

My friend Rachel did something similar to this, except hers were micromachined silicon, and she actually designed everything in CAD, and the design was an entire ALU. Amazing, no?

Web link of note: LEGO logic gates
(At http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/mjhoward/logic.html)

Meccano Difference Engine

looky

This guy made the Difference Engine with Meccano parts. The most interesting part to me is how he was forced to adapt the gears to store the decimal numbers Babbage’s designs require:

“Meccano does not provide us with too many examples of tenfold symmetry, so representing decimal numbers is a challenge. Fortunately we can depend on the following two observations. First, by meshing a 95t gear wheel with a 57t gear wheel we get a ratio of 5:3.  This means that 1/10th of a rotation of the larger gear corresponds to 1/6th of a rotation of the smaller one, and we have available the 6 hole bush wheel. This can provide a detent mechanism to hold the smaller gear in one of 6 positions, corresponding to holding the larger one in one of 10 positions. Second, we note that the ratchet wheel has 20 teeth.  Had not this been a multiple of 10, construction of the mechanism may well have been much more difficult.”

Web link of note: Meccano Difference Engine
(At http://www.meccano.us/difference_engines/rde_1/index.html)

MIT Differential Analyzer

looky

I remember seeing pictures of this thing in newsreels… not on their original screenings of course.

The Differential Analyzer was MIT’s first computer, built by Vannevar Bush and his students in the early 1930s.

It looks like a table full of car transmission parts… a long glass-covered table with rods running along its length. It is entirely analog- values are stored by positions of rotating gears; there are no cams or ratchets that I remember.

The user interface is a graph- to input values the operator moves a stylus arm to different points on a graph, and the machine outputs another graph.

Web link of note: MIT Differential Analyzer
(At http://web.mit.edu/mindell/www/analyzer.htm)

Cthulhu in the original Elder God

looky

I was debating on the actual pronunciation of the name “Cthulhu,” a primordial chaos deity invented by writer H P Lovecraft in his story Call of Cthulhu.

Since Lovecraft used Latin letters to render the sound, it’s hard to say how the name actually sounds in the original Elder God language. Presumably it would be easier to say if you had a squid mouth, but we will just have to make do with tongues and teeth.

So: in the International Phonetic Alphabet, it would be

xɮɤˠɬuˠ

x ɮ ɤˠ ɬ uˠ

I really like the precision of the IPA… it’s cool. Here is a quick guide on how to pronounce what these symbols imply:

IPA symbol description sounds like
x unvoiced velar fricative Hiss with the very back of your mouth like you have swallowed something you are allergic to that itches. Don’t hawk phlegm, just hiss. Should sound like the german “ch” in the pronoun “ich,” also known as a hard H.
ɮ voiced dental lateral fricative shape your mouth and tongue like you are about to say the L in “LIKE.” Now, without changing the shape of your mouth or tongue at all, make a shwa sound, like the “uh” sound in “LOVE.” It should sound like a wet moan. I chose this one instead of the unvoiced because it seems unlikely to me that squid mouths would be able to easily lead words with voiced fricatives, but the word needs to lead into the vowel. There is probably a more technical way of saying that, but I have never taken a phonology class. I chose it for aesthetic reasons, basically.
ɤˠ velarized half-closed back vowel (unrounded) this was the most uncertain letter. Here I have a sort of “oh” sound with the lips pushed forwards… but it could just as easily be a schwa sound- the “uh” sound. For bonus points, “velarize” the vowel by almost touching the back of your tongue to the top of your throat, like you are hawking up phlegm. Hiss that way while pronouncing the vowel.
ɬ unvoiced dental lateral fricative shape your mouth and tongue like you are about to say the L in “LIKE.” Now, without changing the shape of your mouth or tongue at all, exhale through your mouth, like saying the “H” in “HARRY.” It should sound like a wet hiss.
uˠ velarized closed back rounded vowel the “oo” in “YAHOO.” That was an easy one! For bonus points, “velarize” the vowel by almost touching the back of your tongue to the top of your throat, like you are hawking up phlegm. Hiss that way while pronouncing the vowel.

According to the man himself, written in on of the over eighty thousand letters he wrote during his lifetime:

“The actual sound – as nearly as human organs could imitate it or human letters record it – may be taken as something like Khlul’-hloo, with the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly.”

“The best approximation one can make is to grunt, bark, or cough the imperfectly formed syllables Cluh-Luh with the tip of the tongue firmly affixed to the roof of the mouth. That is, if one is a human being. Directions for other entities are naturally different.”