Comments on: The Binary Marble Adding Machine

By: The Wonderful, Wooden Marble Adding Machine | Open Culture

The Wonderful, Wooden Marble Adding Machine | Open Culture — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:38:05 +0000

[...] about the machine on Wandel’s Web page, and about the underlying logic and mathematics at Exploring Binary. [...]

By: Rick Regan

Rick Regan — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:55:59 +0000

Bob,

I agree it isn’t an analog computer. I really mean it’s an analog to an electrical circuit. But I still say it’s primitive — in the year 2009 at least! In any case, I changed the opening sentence from this

“Here’s a primitive analog computer, called the Binary Marble Adding Machine, that adds numbers mechanically.”

to this

“The Binary Marble Adding Machine is a device that adds binary numbers mechanically.”

Thanks for the comments and the pointer to the patent.

By: Bob Shepard

Bob Shepard — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:34:37 +0000

You provided a nice description. Your first sentence though may need more consideration.
a) The first patent for a marble powered ripple adder (3,006,082) was issued in 1961. It can be made from primative materials but the adder is hardly primative.
b) Saying a digital, binary, ripple adder is “analog” seems almost exactly wrong.
c) It is not accurate to say a simple ripple adder is a “computer.” Calling it an “adding machine” would be better.

Bob S.

By: The Binary Marble Adding Machine « Reasonable Deviations

The Binary Marble Adding Machine « Reasonable Deviations — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:31:30 +0000

[...] (hat tip: Rick Regan) [...]

By: Steve Meier

Steve Meier — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:16:49 +0000

There are only 10 types of people in the world,

Those that understand binary and those that don’t.
(oldie but a goodie)

….Love that machine; that dude has has has an excellent woodworkers webseite.

Cheers,

Steve