Hey you guys, I was thinking ...

Why not invent a machine that will do what we tell it to do !
Say I want the machine to calculate 1+1, I lower a lever once, lower another lever (that tells the machine to "add") and then lower the first lever again.
It could be amazing !!!
We could build this machine to resemble a finite state automata and then we could program it to solve any problem a finite state automata can solve .

Gee, I can't believe no one thought of this !!!

Kobi Hikri.

I can't see any crying need for yet another machine that does what we tell it to do.

Blaise Pascal built and displayed a mechanical computer in 1642. (Add/subtact were the basic operations --- multiplication and division were done by manual repititions of the basic operations --- but ya gotta start somewhere.) Irrelevant you say? Well consider that the only real basic operation was adding. Subtraction was performed by adding the complement of the subtrahend, as is the case in virtually all modern computer hardware. By the way, most people pronounce his last name with the accent on the second syllable, but maybe it should be pronounced in a way that rhymes with "rascal", because of the scandal that was created when, under the pseudonym of Amos Dettonville, he challenged other mathematicians to a contest and then awarded the prize to himself!

Charles Babbage published details his Analytical Engine (steam-powered, of course) in 1837. He couldn't get funding to actually build the device (Might have been beyond the capabilities of machine tool technology of the time.)
There is a great web page with lots of details here. Here's a little hint of what you can see:


In 1937 Alan Turing published theoretical details of a computing machine and mathematical proofs that such a machine can work as a model for any other machine. (By the way, did you know that some of Turing's work on cryptography, done during World War II is still classified?)

I won't give you references on robotic machines that interact directly with the world around us --- you can look them up easily.

In summary: there are lots of machines that pretty do much what we tell them to do. Now, if you could come up with a machine that does what we want it to do ...


Regards,

Dave

Hey Dave.
I did know this fact about turing, though I didn't know anything about Pascal.


Thanks,
Kobi Hikri

P.S
You do understand it was a joke, right ?

Pascal uses begin...end instead of {...} and the assignment operator is :=

Yeah, unfortunately I learned pascal when I was in high school.
I meant I don't know anything about the person Pascal (except some mathematicl thesis of him).

Kobi Hikri.

And I quote:

I gathered that. I just couldn't keep myself from commenting on some things that I find technically, as well as historically, interesting.

Now, as far as a worthy project, how about this: Everyone knows that projects are always late. Late projects mean missed market opportunities that you can never get back. Even if your product is more successful than you had projected, and it eventually makes lots of money, the fact is that once you have missed, say, six months of sales, you can never, ever get that money into your coffers. So...

I have been trying to get my boss to stop work on all current and planned projects and pour all corporate resources into design and implementation of --- are you ready for this? --- a time machine.

Think about it: If we could just be successful with this one project, then all other projects are automatically finished on time. Just go back a few days or weeks, eliminate the dead-end decision or other mistake and go forward again. If a project needs more equipment just wait until we make money somewhere else, then go back and beef up the resources for that one.

How about it?


Regards,

Dave

(Maybe this thread should be moved to General Discussions???)

Hey Dave.

Theres a problem with this ...
Yesterday I spent lots of time sitting and waiting for my future Kobi to come and tell me that he built a time machine.He didn't come.

Kobi.

The Law of Projects:
The first 90% of any project takes the first 90% of the time, the last 10% of the project takes the other 90% of the time.


So why would he? He remembers what you were like now...

I guess you have a point there.
That Kobi, never trust him to come back for a friend ...