Ancient Robot Was Programmed with Rope 141
Pingu93 writes "New Scientist has a feature about the 'worlds first' programmable robot, dating from 60AD. It was designed by a Greek inventor who was, appropriately enough, called Hero. He designed his rolling machine so that it could be programmed using rope and pegs in different configurations. Some of the writers at New Scientist went so far as to build their own version of the robot and the technology blog has some video of it in action."
Actually, his name was Hiro (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Actually, his name was Hiro (Score:4, Funny)
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I keep telling people to read it. Sooner or later, everbody listens to Reason...
Re: Snowcrash. (Score:1, Informative)
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(Or as they say on digg: FAIL.)
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Or, you're just an asshole. You can disagree about Snow Crash, but don't belittle someone and then presume yourself to be better read than they are simply because you disagree.
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I did really like the Diamond Age, too.
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Yes, it's good.
More on topic, it features a Turing-complete computer made of cogwheels and chains. I bet that greek guy's rope wasn't Turing-complete ...
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Say, it knows well enough to hook its counterweight up to a pully, a tree limb perhaps, attach a rock to the end, and push the rock off a cliff.
Eternal life!
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"Crucifixion or freedom?" asked the civil servant.
"Freedom. I saw that flick, and I'll just hop the next boat headed for the Seychelles, thanks," replied Hero, demonstrating pragmatism over commitment to art.
If only ROBOTICS had taken off then.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Just imagine, ROBOTS could have built the Pyramids, and we could have skipped Slavery and SERFDOM...
Just suppose Robots and AI based computers could do ALL our WORK ?
NOW, more ROBOTS means more FREEDOM for HUMANs !! as long as we take it ALL the way and restructure the economy into what you will come to know as TEAM INFINITY's WAGELESS ROBOTIC ECONOMY.
http://TeamInfinity.com/TRANSFORMER_WAGELESS [teaminfinity.com]
Robotics & Artificial Intelligence together can ELIMINATE ALL HUMAN JOBS, and MONEY in one fell s
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Blast man, there's no ambiguity in the concept. High S/N means low noise. It can only be interpreted as the ratio of the magnitude of the useful information compared to the magnitude of the useless chatter. Which places signal clearly in the numerator and noise clearly in the denominator. High signal to noise can only mean that there is a lot of useful information to be extracted, or just a little bit, bu
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I wonder what sort of knotty problems this computer was able to unravel.
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> I wonder what sort of knotty problems this computer was able to unravel.
I dunno if it was turing complete. It sure was "multithreaded" though.
It also likely sparked a debate whether 640 knots would be enough for everybody.
But does it run.. (Score:2)
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Geezz (Score:2, Funny)
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rj
Visual Rope (Score:3, Funny)
Or .rope instead of .net?
Microsoft Rope?
Rope++
Compiler converts Rope to Chain?
Re:Visual Rope (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be waiting for the water operated robot (Score:5, Funny)
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You should get the AMD version; it has on-board support for pontoons. Same thing, really, just a different trademark. They call the prow of the vehicle "floating point technology" for the way it cuts through the water. They're still working on the wet string problem, though, so I'd wait for the first update before getting involved.
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Re:Visual Rope (Score:5, Funny)
There it goes... (Score:1)
GrEkZ (Score:5, Funny)
we should already have on
"Can you do better?" (Score:5, Funny)
Could you please give us a video of the original, please, for comparative purposes?
Oh yeah (Score:1)
Name (Score:3, Interesting)
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steam engines and automatic plays (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:steam engines and automatic plays (Score:5, Informative)
It was, in fact, the very same Hero of Alexandria who invented the steam engine.
Re:steam engines and automatic plays (Score:5, Informative)
I did my Humanities project on Hero last semester. The professor tried to give me guff because I "didn't specify who the hero was."
Seriously.
Other fun facts about Hero of Alexandria:
He invented the first vending machine, a coin-operated fountain;
the first pedometer, which tracked miles traveled with pebbles;
and a primitive nickelodeon that performed an automatic play.
I couldn't get my model of his aeolipile to work. Oh well. No shame in being shown up by the ancient Greeks.
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Dammit, you keep your hands off those innocent children!
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Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)
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Thats the guy who invented school exams.
Sorry but... (Score:1, Funny)
SMP ETC (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SMP ETC (Score:4, Funny)
Re:SMP ETC (Score:4, Interesting)
Did "Rope" use static or dynamic binding? (Score:1)
Overrated (Score:1)
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A Turing Machine isn't a terribly complex device, and there are a number of low-tech ways to make one. This isn't one of them, though. You'd need some way to change the pegs as the machine runs.
A way to make an infinitely long piece of rope is left as an exercise to the reader.
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Laws of Robotics Troubles (Score:5, Funny)
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don't read too fast... (Score:5, Funny)
-Pinkoir
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Try the Dislexic Dialy Chronicle
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Great info, bad article. Here's how it works. (Score:3, Informative)
Clever little piece of early technology. Main article is link to a paysite. Video has too much talking head and not enough of the thing working.
Actual YouTube link. [youtube.com] About two minutes of talking head (skip that part), five seconds of the thing working. The second sequence of the robot, where you see how the cord is wound around the axles, makes it obvious how the thing works.
The basic idea is that you have a 3-wheeled platform with two powered wheels and an idler. The powered wheels are on a split shaft, and each half of the shaft has a drum around which a cord is wound. The cords go up to a pole, through a pulley, and down to a weight.
If that was the whole thing, it would just go in a straight line. The clever part is that there are some pins in the rollers, and those are used to reverse the winding direction of the cords. So by putting in appropriate pins and winding the cord in alternate directions, you can set it to move forward, turn in place in either direction, or reverse. Simple, cute, and reasonably accurate, because the programming setup determines the distance in each mode, not the time.
You can't cycle it, though; it's a one-shot thing. Once it's run, you have to manually redo all the proper winding and setup. This is significant, because, unlike something cam-driven, it has no potential as an industrial technology. It doesn't lead to, say, an automatic weaving loom.
Not full article (Score:2, Informative)
Did this inspire a chapter of The Diamond Age (Score:1)
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GHOST SHIP with ancient computer? (Score:1, Interesting)
Hero was smart (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine this. (Score:2)
(and demand like 1.000.000,= euro's)
This complete post is 2525 words long. (Score:3)
Way to piss off your family (Score:2)
Thanks alot dad !
Thanks hun, hope you don't mind me putting a new vaccuum on the card !
wisdom in this? (Score:1)
Greeks also invented 1st Bad Patent... (Score:1)
Mechanical Programming (Score:2)
Textual Code? (Re:Old) (Score:5, Interesting)
Either way it is pretty cool because it is a simple concept that is powerful. I wonder how one would express it as text code? Perhaps something like this:
Left Wheel: wwwpwwpwpwwwpwwww
Right Wheel: wwwwpwwppwwwpwwpw
Where "p" is a reversal peg and "w" is a wrap of string. However, the pegs don't necessarily have to be on the same line. Thus, maybe put a digit that indicates a partial wrap. Example: "ww5wp". Here the "5" means 5/10'ths of a wrap (0.5). Using fractions of 10 keeps it to single digits. I'm sure this is an oversimplification of the different ways the string can be wrapped, though.
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If digital computers can be used to create a sentient being, then anything that is Turing Complete (such as loop-able NAND gates) could in theory do that same. However, it may take it decades to compute a given thought if mechanical-based. We probably couldn't test it on a typical human lifet
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Greek geeks?
Yup [imdb.com], they're [imdb.com] called [imdb.com] Lambdas [imdb.com].
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A vehicle is for transporting things, while the robot in question was for entertainment. It moved to mimick human or animal movements. (It would be dressed up prettier than these demo's when doing performances.)
Re:I always thought it would be cool... (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, you could still do it with lego, and I mean a real computer with logical gates - http://goldfish.ikaruga.co.uk/logic.html [ikaruga.co.uk]
Re:I always thought it would be cool... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcDshWmhF4A [youtube.com]
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Well, if you overwind the rope, it'll run through windows.