ce magazine march 2019 issue

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The Romans knew how to make wire and also knew how to work iron. So now the question is, can you build a computer using only diodes, wire, and iron? Well, prior to 1953, no computers used transistors. The Romans knew how to work glass, but it’s unlikely they could have manufactured vacuum tubes. While a lot of early computers did use vacuum tubes, they often also relied on diode logic. There are two major problems you have to solve with diode logic. First, diodes have a voltage drop across them, which means you need to amplify the signal every so often. Early designers solved this problem using transistors as amplifiers. The second problem is that you can’t design a NOT gate (an inverter) using only diodes. Designers got around this problem also by using transistors (or vacuum tubes). So how could the Romans have done it without transistors? Well, you can build an inverter using a transformer by simply flipping the secondary output wires around. A transformer is just a square iron ring with wire wrapped around each side. You have to use discrete pulses rather than continuous logic levels, but that’s how everyone did it in the 40’s and 50’s. To solve the amplification problem, you can use a relay. You can make a relay using only iron and wire, but they’re often small, intricate devices and they have moving parts. I think if they recruited Roman jewelry makers and scaled the size so it was reasonable to work with, they could have produced relays. There are some really impressive pieces of Roman jewelry that have been found. The image is too large to embed here, but take a look at the chain on this piece. They also would have needed to make memory, a way to preserve the state of the machine. The obvious candidate here is core memory. Most core memory was made using ferrite, but regular iron can be used. I won’t go into detail here on how core memory works because Wikipedia has a good article on it. If you’re not familiar, I recommend checking it out. It’s a really neat idea. Incidentally, you can also make logic using ferrite cores, like the Elliot 803 did, so that could be useful for supplementing (or even replacing) diode logic. The last, and perhaps most important thing you need for a computer is electricity! We know that the Baghdad Battery existed back then, but it’s highly unlikely that a plausibly large array of them could power this hypothetical Roman computer. Instead, they would have had to use a generator. This is probably the most difficult part of this hypothetical computer. To turn a water wheel into a generator, they could have used a configuration like this: 34
But you need a magnet for that. Basically the only magnet they would have had access to is Lodestone. There are a couple of ways they could have made a better magnet. From Wikipedia: Heating the [iron] above its Curie temperature, allowing it to cool in a magnetic field and hammering it as it cools. This is the most effective method and is similar to the industrial processes used to create permanent magnets. Placing the item in an external magnetic field will result in the item retaining some of the magnetism on removal. Vibration has been shown to increase the effect. Ferrous materials aligned with the Earth’s magnetic field that are subject to vibration (e.g., frame of a conveyor) have been shown to acquire significant residual magnetism. Stroking: An existing magnet is moved from one end of the item to the other repeatedly in the same direction. By iterating the process several times to make successively stronger magnets, the Romans could probably have made some magnets good enough for a generator. It’s important to note that I’m not a historian; I’m a computer engineer (who was trained using modern techniques, at that). So this is all speculation. I think if you traveled back in time to the Roman Empire and told them how to manufacture this stuff, you could plausibly create a very modest computer. My main concern is powering the device, I still don’t know if that would work well enough. But there’s only one way to find out: Experiment… Are you an expert at Roman history or the kind of engineer who remembers using a mercury delay line? I’d love to hear about other tricks they could have used! 35
Page 1 and 2: Michigan City Indiana March Vol. 7
Page 3 and 4: 3
Page 5 and 6: Please Don’t Be A Victim! 4 month
Page 7 and 8: 7
Page 9 and 10: To Hack or not to Hack Your cell ph
Page 11 and 12: 11
Page 13 and 14: One of the earliest and still-hotte
Page 15 and 16: Safety Gadgets Via NPR.org/Georgia
Page 17 and 18: Dogs, technology and the future of
Page 19 and 20: The dogs will be equipped with pass
Page 21 and 22: ―A handler can check a video to s
Page 23 and 24: A Few Pictures Of Rescue Dogs At Th
Page 25 and 26: 2. Fit Bark Fit bark is a mobile we
Page 27 and 28: 5. PetHub PetHub is a dog ID that h
Page 29 and 30: Armor to guard $50,000 dogs K9 Stor
Page 31 and 32: Something to enlighten you up Hunte
Page 33: They could have easily made a cat
Page 37: In Memoriam.. If you see a single R

ce magazine march 2019 issue

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?