Comic Genesis Forums

What igloo?

I don't know. What igloo? What's the IGLOO? I've asked this before.

(Wind whistling and crickets chirp)

..............IGLOO!!!

BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!! (Swirls cape and runs off into the shadows)

DragonMasterHawk wrote:If I've made any mistakes, please correct me.

The only thing I'd quibble with is the semantics -- "only continue if" implies program flow, i.e. software. Hardware is slightly different, in that the voltage states at the input(s) determine the voltage state at the output, so it would be more accurate to say "turn output on if..."

And yes, as Skip says, memory circuits can (and are) built out of logic gates... in fact, all possible digital-logic circuits can be built out of three basic gates: AND, OR, and NOT. (NAND and NOR are simply AND & OR gates with a NOT tacked onto the output, and the XOR/XNOR functions can be built out of appropriate combinations of those gates as well.)

The JAM wrote:This is more than a circuit that would be soldered on a circuit board (much like there is in a TV or radio)....

THE SWORD HAS THE EQUIVALENT OF AN INTEGRATED CIRCUIT!!! And if it's fractal-based, dare we say it's not only an IC, it's practically a MICROPROCESSOR as well??

Er.... no.

An integrated circuit is nothing more than a lot of transistors in a very small space -- before ICs were invented, logic gates were circuits soldered onto circuit boards, made out of large numbers of individual resistors, diodes, and transistors. Before that, they were racks and racks of vacuum tubes linked together by miles of wire.

And microprocessors have nothing to do with fractals. Recursion is a mathematical concept, not a hardware design.

wow... I came in here to post on the digital logic gates, and found the subject had already been hashed to shreds. Guess that's why I generally just lurk, eh?

I'm such a geek... I read each gate off right away, yep: NOT, buffer, AND, NAND, OR, NOR, XOR, XNOR... ah... those are such fun to make...

And whoever it was that said they didn't have to be integrated circuits was quite correct... you can make each of these logic gates with a bunch of regular old household light switches, if you so desired.

It just seemed kinda unlikely that something with so much potential power could be made in a drunken stupor.

You've probably just described most of prime time television.

Or any bill introduced by Ted Kennedy.

What Quentyn's next question should be:

"So how do I control this thing?"

What I'm intrested in is if this thing has a program of sorts; what are the variables that it uses?

LeiraHoward wrote:wow... I came in here to post on the digital logic gates, and found the subject had already been hashed to shreds. Guess that's why I generally just lurk, eh?

I did a classic double-take, and then started Googling for 'computer gate logic symbols'... I haven't messed with logic circuits for years.

LeiraHoward wrote:And whoever it was that said they didn't have to be integrated circuits was quite correct... you can make each of these logic gates with a bunch of regular old household light switches, if you so desired.

Hell, my first job was installing AE Strowger "Step-By-Step" telephone switchgear as it was giving it's last gasp, and that was all hard-wired relay logic. A big purpose-built analog relay computer, with recursive programming and everything.

(If the direct route between local switchrooms was busy it had two or three other routes to try - before the call was dumped off to a toll center, and let them deal with it. If they couldn't find a route, _then_ the calling party got a fast busy.)

If nothing else, this should remove some of the mystery from the sword, allowing Quentyn to 'phrase the question properly' to get the response out of the sword he needs. Kinda Sorta. Yeah, Right, Suuuuure... You Hope... Don't stand too close to the pointy end in case it completely ignores him...

--<< Bruce >>--

From reading all this discussion, I think we can assume that what we have here is the first lux based computer?

Another question would be, if the sword is bonded to Quentyn, what happens to it if Quentyn would perish? (Perish the thought) Does the thing go poof? Or does it become inert, studiable, but unusable.

MAYBE, the sword was made from pieces of a mystic, lux engraved meteorite from another planetary civilization,...

*Runs away from all the flying trout, laughing maniacally*

GrayTiger wrote:

It just seemed kinda unlikely that something with so much potential power could be made in a drunken stupor.

You've probably just described most of prime time television.

Or any bill introduced by Ted Kennedy.

Ohhhh burn

Well, this is similar to what I assumed would be revealed, if not spot on the money. I guess that instead of a "child learning how to walk" concept, though, the problem is a little more complex..

...Namely, we we have people of Tech Level* (3+2) suddenly making a broad leap forward into Tech Level (3+3) with the first ever complex Lux-Circuit.

Quentyn's problem isn't that his sword's not working; it's that it's working on a level of complexity no other Rac'conan's seen before, and now he has to figure out how to work it properly..


*Tech Levels are a concept I got from GURPS, to broadly categorize technology according to certain eras: TL3 is Medieval, TL4 is Renaissance, TL5 is Industrial Revolution, TL6 is Mechanized Age (with electronics), TL7 is Nuclear Age, and TL8 is our current Digital Age. In addition, there are also divergent Tech Levels, or TL(x+y) representing variant forms of progress, where x represents the TL at which the tech diverged and y is the number of TLs since the divergence, and the sum x+y is the effective TL for most purposes.

The Rac'Conan are a TL(3+2) society, effectively with an Industrial Revolution level of progress diverging from the otherwise Medieval base through the use of Lux energy. But Quentyn, Kestrl and Fen's accidental invention of Logic Gate Runes, once deciphered and replicated, will allow the Rac'Conans to create Lux-Circuits with multiple pathways, allowing for more complex Lux-devices, thus representing a leap forward in the tech level, TL (3+3)...

...And that's enough of -my- rambling...

If you can make a logic gate out of Tinker toys and rope, Which you can (not sure what scientific American issue it was in. ) Which you can. You can make computers or difference engines out of lux then. So it could actualy be a computer.

Astral wrote:What I'm intrested in is if this thing has a program of sorts; what are the variables that it uses?

Hmmmmmm.... Brings new meaning to the term "Blue Screen Of Death"......

Hey! That sales pitch enchantment is a magical form of "spam!!"

jamestox wrote:

Astral wrote:What I'm intrested in is if this thing has a program of sorts; what are the variables that it uses?

Hmmmmmm.... Brings new meaning to the term "Blue Screen Of Death"......

Hey! That sales pitch enchantment is a magical form of "spam!!"

Ah, the first one.

Calbeck wrote:BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!

The kids created a Mandelbrot set from magic runes!

And threw in programming language to boot!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!

Ooooh... I knew that Chaos Theory class would come in handy!

Everything that's been happening makes sense now.... Throw in a little complexity (like a Mandelbrot set) and anything in possible.

Fasten your seatbelts everyone!

AHhh... chaos theory - its like a plotdevice, only cooler

EDIT: Look me up when the thing achieves sentience...

jamestox wrote:Hmmmmmm.... Brings new meaning to the term "Blue Screen Of Death"......

Darn! Beat me to it.

Let's just hope Quentyn's sword never needs a reboot while he's in the middle of an encounter with a villain.

CTL-ALT-DEL

If the sword has a programing then, the reason its not working could be because:

A: They don't know what the variables for the program are, thus you can't prodict how the sword would react in any given situation, or if it would react atall.

B: The coding was writen by three drunken kits that have never even seen pascal, never mind being in any fit state to write and de-bug a complex Eviroment-reactive program. The thing is probably full of errors and hicks, they need a high level programmer to sort that tangled lot out.