Hmm... Whatever you build has to be able to withstand many billions of operations to be very useful, is the key problem I see. In the world of physical machinery you'll be hard-pressed to find ANYTHING guaranteed to function that reliably. With pneumatics I'm immediately thinking about friction inside piping wearing out elbows and so forth, especially with the level of pressure you'd need to get a fast enough response. Hydraulic maybe... It's an interesting thought at least.8bitMicroGuy wrote:Hey I was thinking about that too.
When studying pneumatics and hydraulics in class, I tried to make a pneumatic memory. I did to one extent, but only in the simulator program which was limited and had problems so I couldn't really be precise enough. I think that a pneumatic computer is very makeable in reality. A microfluidic hydraulic computer would be more efficient due to the Coanda effect and higher precision. However, I don't know what would the maximum frequency be. Megahertz-s would cause a lot of hydraulic noise and even hydraulic impact which would cause vibrations and everything exploding. If not that, then corrosion caused by exploding hydraulic bubbles caused by the densification due to hydraulic impact. If the pipes and the pressures would be very little and nicely calculated, it might be somewhat safer.
Like, the more I think about it the more I'm forced to conclude that the way we do computing now is probably the right track to be on. But I still see us as woefully unprepared for that kind of disaster scenario I mentioned. We got here through such a slow gradual process and a lot of those intermediate stages of technology no longer exist, so would we even be ABLE to reconstruct our modern world from scratch? You'd think we'd have a plan for that. Say a few computer-parts factories that get a government disaster-readiness grant to keep some rooms stocked full of all the raw materials, parts, antiquated equipment and information you'd need to get your facilities back up and running, to go from a total blackout to rebuilding things. The way I see it today, I would think most of the world's population would die off before anyone figured out how to get a computer running again. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the end of civilization as we know it.
I mean, hell, we have a hard enough time just getting our electrical grid back up and running when there's a major trip or something, an event that leaves all the infrastructure still there and functional. Our modern lifestyle really is hanging by a slender thread.
