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[Ampersand]

Build a complex sewer system with garbage dumps connecting it to where the dwarves are. Using the levers, devise a way to use the sewers to open water flow from any given direction and push dumped items into the appropriate stockpile below, where the water is then drained away. Won't work for stones but it should work for many crafts and refuse.

[soundandfury]

No no no! your missing the knowlege, so i should appolgise im talking about a TRUE computer. A computer is by definition a mechanical device that uses a source of power (either electric or mechanical) to follow a set set of instructions programed by a user. Of which it then solves by itself, no user input apart from activation is needed.

now that is a computer, but remember a computer also needs another vital bit of equipment to function with its programmed data.... damn, i love being cryptic

I beg to differ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine THAT is a true computer, if you want to start bandying definitions about.  (It doesn't even have to be mechanical) Whether one could build a Turing Machine in DF, I don't know. Any ideas?

[duro]

I beg to differ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine THAT is a true computer, if you want to start bandying definitions about.  (It doesn't even have to be mechanical) Whether one could build a Turing Machine in DF, I don't know. Any ideas?

If you're able to implement an infinite tape, I'll help with the rest.

However it will be a hell of work to load a program (but then again it can be hard coded).

[aaaabaaccaadfda]

The turring machine is EXACTLY what i was being cryptic about, good work for working it out

anyway i've developed my plans for it including a memory like contraption inplementing the infinite tape i was refering to in the turing machine

i cant say to much but, sound if your happy to work with me, all i need is my memory bank completed i'm sure we could work together

[soundandfury]

I beg to differ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine THAT is a true computer, if you want to start bandying definitions about.  (It doesn't even have to be mechanical) Whether one could build a Turing Machine in DF, I don't know. Any ideas?

If you're able to implement an infinite tape, I'll help with the rest.

However it will be a hell of work to load a program (but then again it can be hard coded).

I'm afraid I'm not even sure if it's possible to implement a finite tape, except for one possibility: tiles full/empty of water?
i.e.:

Code: [Select]

1
#######
≈¢≈≈¢≈≈
#######

2
#######
X¢_X¢_X
#######

3
#######
+++++++
#######¢=hatch, X=floodgate, #=rock/wall, +=floor, _=pressure plate, ≈=water source

In each case, the pressure plate tells us whether it's a 0 or a 1, and the two hatches allow us to 'write 0' and 'write 1' respectively.  (1 is >4/7, 0 is <3/7)  Cells can be combined in a vertical direction to allow for more than 1-bit.  So you can have any finite number of symbols.

The main problem is that you can't move the 'tape'.  So what is needed is an 'airlock' arrangement of floodgates (with pumps) so that you can transfer EVERY symbol one cell to the left or right.  This is left as an exercise for the reader! :p

Ok, duno, your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to build a Turing Machine to do... erm, something.
(Adding two binary numbers would be a good one to start on)

For testing out Tables of Behaviour, you could download my Finite State Machine emulator at www.justtotheleftofvenus.tk (click 'downloads', then scroll down).  The download contains a few ToBs and one of them is binary addition.

[Flaede]

how about just have a machine that actively sorts incoming dwarves and counts them? (bonus duplicate for incoming goblins). then you can have an accurate "at a glance" count of how many dwarves you HAD. have a lever dwarf keep a running tally of the dead... subtract dead from total... arrive at current dwarf population.

this seems a simpler first-use of a dwarf-puter.

(bonus points: In a completely finished dwarf-puter (umbrella corp) complex you can have this number automatically seal/unseal or flood/drain rooms for habitation, food production, brewing into population approprate amounts... but if you don't want to accidentally kill MORE dwarves with the automation... it gets tricky)

[aaaabaaccaadfda]

Unfortuanalty for me ( and for the dwarfven community as a whole). I seem to have junked my computer plan, I understand how difficult it is to create a memory unit in either mechanical OR fluid commputing but, what i do remember from my plan was that i proposed to combine both types of logic, with one serving as the 'computer' or 'manipulator' and the other serving as a memory device. If my memory is correct I purposed to to use water as the memory device and the mechanical gears etc to "read" the the input of the water. Thus soundandfury eliminating the need for screw pumps in your system ( or so i think off the top of my head). And can compute quite fast.
Then all we need is a language to programm it in!
 

[aaaabaaccaadfda]

By the way Flaede what your describing there is a differnt type of logic known as Borg knowlege
(see the wiki under borg logic http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Computing#Borg_Logic ) it consists of the dwarfs walking in a paticular patern throught your fortress see the wiki for more on it

But anyhow ill get to redrawing my plans i'll upload them when i can today, ( when there finished)

[Flaede]

sorry. I wasn't wanting the whole thing controlled by this BORG thing, just one input number.
I thought that differed slightly, but on second glance you're right.

Make it entirely poor compSci dwarf, then. Pulling levers to tally population numbers.

[aaaabaaccaadfda]

to do what your sujesting would i would have to do is create some way for my computer to create a programm which simply counts the number of dwarfs in a fort (using a pressure plate system) and then stores it in the memory, simple engough but i the programmer have to litteraly construct the programm in dwarf fort

[Peewee]

Well, I don't have any suggestions for your many levered set up.
I usually use dwarfputers for making tasks easier... like instead of having five levers to control flooding and draining a farm, I make a elaborate mechanism to do it on command with a single lever pull.

[aaaabaaccaadfda]

Peewee thats not a dwarfputer, it's alot of levers conected to things of which you have to operate manually, a computer is something that you tell it to go look/do something and it does it without your interferance

[duro]

For memory, one could use a purely mechanical implementation of flip-flops, because DF mechanics have no random switching/transfer delays. Fluid mechanic is not that stable (and fast!).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(found no better image that fast, silly me)

So depending on the alphabet size of the tape there is a need for a number of flip-flops per cell on the tape. Then there's need to define the implementation of the head: either the whole tape is a shift register with only one cell being the head, or the actual head is indexed, limiting the numbers of cells.

For now I think implementation as a shift register is easier, as there's only one pattern to implement on and on while the logic needs access to only one cell for read/write.

[Flaede]

simple engough but i the programmer have to litteraly construct the programm in dwarf fort

yes. yes you would. you would have to construct a program to count and store the number of incoming dwarves. (and probably clear to zero each lap of 200) WOuldn't you have to construct whatever program you want to use? I thought this thread was asking for suggestions for practical uses for a dwarfputer, that was the only one I could think of.

I was hoping to get some practical designs to build myself. the wiki wasn't big on extended uses for the dwarfputers last I checked, and I know if I try I'll get it wrong   (and flood my fortress trying to add in a Y2K patch)

[duro]

practical uses for a dwarfputer

Erm...

• Be sure to have stuff like interrupts.
• Write a multiprogramming operating system for it.
• Build a graphical output device, e.g. a matrix of floodgates.
• Then use it to watch dwarf porn.