back to article A working Turing Machine hits Lego Ideas

A working Turing Machine was submitted to Lego Ideas, consisting of approximately 2,900 parts and a bucketload of extreme cleverness. The original machine was devised by mathematician Alan Turing in 1936. Turing's idea was a hypothetical system that could simulate any computer algorithm. The design consisted of an infinitely …

  1. Alan J. Wylie
    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: No Annoying Music

      There's also the possibility of simply muting the sound.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: No Annoying Music

        If you mute the sound, you lose the narrative which is quite interesting.

        1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

          Re: No Annoying Music

          Point taken.

        2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

          Re: No Annoying Music

          If you have AI powered player you can just mute the music and leave the lecturer.

        3. JEZ_222

          Re: No Annoying Music

          Subtitles ?

  2. Bebu
    Coat

    Cannot wait...

    for someone to port Linux to the Lego Technic Turing machine. ;)

    I still remember coding simple functions in Turing machine 4-tuples as part of a third year undergrad. mathematical logic course - must have been scarred for life:) - actually I remember it wasn't too bad one you got the hang of it.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Cannot wait...

      "for someone to port Linux to the Lego Technic Turing machine. ;)"

      and then porting Doom :-)

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Cannot wait...

        Yeah, but can it run Crysis?

  3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Implementing the infinitely long tape in Lego should be good for sales.

    1. steelpillow Silver badge
      Joke

      Not necessarily infinite - or have you solved the halting problem?

      1. SCP

        +++Out Of Bricks Error: Wait for Christmas+++

        1. Muscleguy

          HAVE YOU BEEN GOOD?

  4. 45RPM Silver badge

    Yes! A marriage of computer science and Lego to make the ultimate Geek toy. Everyone should support this. Hell, I’d buy it - and I’m more a Meccano man myself.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "I’m more a Meccano man myself."

      There's always a new challenge out there.

      1. keithpeter Silver badge
        Pint

        Babbage's work might suggest a few ideas?

        1. keithpeter Silver badge
          Windows

          Tide predictor

          https://hgss.copernicus.org/articles/11/15/2020/

          Fourier series in cogwheels and string. Looks possible in finite time and not too friction bound.

          Icon: Bidston Hill observatory brings back memories.

          1. steelpillow Silver badge

            Cosmological model

            The Antikythera mechanism was the ultimate cosmological supercomputer of its day (and its success the reason why prime numbers gained such mystical significance).

            Lego Technic, Meccano, carved from the bones of a pregnant horse, who cares, I just want those giant cogs with prime numbers of teeth.

            1. Martin-73 Silver badge

              Re: Cosmological model

              I highly recommend clickspring's series on youtube recreating it using period accurate tools....

  5. elDog

    I can see quickly getting a repetitive stress disorder turning that tiny crank

    Perhaps adding another Lego device such as a steam engine or cold-fusion reactor would help.

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: I can see quickly getting a repetitive stress disorder turning that tiny crank

      Definitely steam: it's obviously steampunk, even with plastic instead of brass.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: I can see quickly getting a repetitive stress disorder turning that tiny crank

        It all rather reminded me of the old electro-mechanical kit from years gone by, my experience being at school where we had 5-hole punch tape machines, some blind, some with teletypes. Or the insides of the even older tickertape family of machines and (electro-)mechanical calculators such as Comptometers.

      2. Korev Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: I can see quickly getting a repetitive stress disorder turning that tiny crank

        I thought Steampunk was dead?

    2. Arthur the cat Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: I can see quickly getting a repetitive stress disorder turning that tiny crank

      Perhaps adding another Lego device such as a steam engine or cold-fusion reactor would help.

      If anyone can get cold fusion working it will be Lego.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I can see quickly getting a repetitive stress disorder turning that tiny crank

        Ah-ha! Indeed, a model of the CROCUS Reactor has also been submitted to Lego Ideas (safety considerations?) ... just the ticket for that tiny crank!

        The whole list of current Ideas is quite colorful ... and at one time (2020) or another (2023) a Pascaline was proposed (see also 2016), but not selected I guess ...

      2. MyffyW Silver badge

        Re: I can see quickly getting a repetitive stress disorder turning that tiny crank

        I once built a model of Windscale complete with the "Cockcroft's Folly" chimneys.

        My model had a flawless safety record until someone stood on one of the fuel assemblies.

  6. Dr Paul Taylor

    Reminds you of when computers were actually still fun!

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Homo.Sapien.Floridanus

    I ask parliament to wholeheartedly fund Mr. Bananaman’s project as it will help us decipher the German Lego Enigma machine and turn the tide of the war in Legoland, saving countless Lego figures.

    - W Churchill

  9. Arthur the cat Silver badge

    Next

    … Babbage's analytical engine. (Or has that been done already?)

    1. Dagg Silver badge

      Re: Next

      In Meccano yes.

  10. Chris Gray 1
    Go

    Oh yesssssssss

    Those who want me to spend money and waste time on this, upvote the idea. :-) As a Lego person and computer programmer, it would be required by my guild memberships to buy one and build one. Given the size of the tape, I wonder how much one can make it do? There isn't anywhere enough state to make a MIPS-3000 emulator to boot Linux on. Even with a tape large enough, it would likely take years to boot!

    Oh, Zed release at: http://www.graysage.com/Zed/New

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh yesssssssss

      Ah-ha! Refering to R3000 emulation deftly channels Dmitry Grinberg's Linux on the 4004 adventure ... that his 740 kHz Intel chip ran like a 70 Hz MIPS (Booting in under 5 days) suggests that the only thing the Lego Turing Machine will need (on top of a very long tape) ... is just a very fast motor to turn its cranks! Say 6 x 10⁷ rpms ... and voilà!

  11. JRStern

    Tape is unbounded, not "infinite"

    Common mistake.

    At some theoretical, philosophical level it makes a difference.

    Of course any tape or capacity for any physical machine is not infinite.

    Also using a register is a bit of a cheat but makes things muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch easier to implement AND RUN, and really nothing conceptual is lost but a bit of purity. It is informative to see just how painful it is without a register, ... or two.

    1. Yes Me Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Tape is unbounded, not "infinite"

      Yes, it makes a difference if you want to fit the machine into a finite universe. If the universe you are in happens to be infinite itself, I think the difference vanishes.

      BTW people have been building TMs for many years. This isn't the first Lego attempt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYw2ewoO6c4 is 15 years old.

      Gisbert Hasenjaeger was building Turing machines before 1960 (look him up in Wikipedia). The amusing thing is that Hasenjaeger's job in Germany during WW II was attempting to break Enigma, and his failure reassured Germany that it was safe. Meanwhile, the inventor of the Turing machine was breaking Enigma...

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: Tape is unbounded, not "infinite"

        Obviously, Herr Hasenjaeger was bright enough to learn from the master.

      2. steelpillow Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Tape is unbounded, not "infinite"

        A tape loop is also unbounded.

        Best would be if you build it in a projective Universe and make sure it stays flat, because then, when you get past the restaurant and come back on the other side, you will be using the other side of the tape, so the data string is twice as long as the Universe!

        Of course, coiling the tape on a couple of reels would be cheating.

        P.S. Infinite, indefinitely large and unbounded are indeed not the same things. Unfortunately, the halting problem and uncertainties about the time the Universe will last for mean that you don't know which tape to use.

        1. Muscleguy

          Re: Tape is unbounded, not "infinite"

          Much simpler to go to the Restaurant then down to the parking garage and ask Marvin.

  12. martinusher Silver badge

    A nice idea but seems impractical

    Reading some old source material about the Turing machine suggests to me that he had an interesting idea but the whole concept is ass-backwards. The giveaway to me is the notion of states, the idea of a state variable that can guide the operation of the machine as it processes the tape which with the notation he devised looks a lot like a machine instruction. This begs the question as to what's driving what -- are the instructions driving the tape or the tape driving the instructions.

    It wouldn't be unusual to find that he'd got the idea of sequential programming almost right -- it was 1936, after all -- but I think that von Neumann's architecture is a lot more practical.

    (This along with some aspects of Bombe development suggest that Turing might have had a bit of a blind spot when it comes to working with others -- he's really smart, has got great ideas but was incapable of dealing with the notion that others have ideas as well.)

    (I'm probably going to get slapped down for this but in my defense I have been reading a reprint of the original paper(s) recently.....)

    1. SCP

      Re: A nice idea but seems impractical

      But the Turing machine is a concept machine that provides a minimalist design that can be shown to be able to complete any general computing task. It is its use in this conceptual role, rather than a usefully practical computing engine, that makes it a foundation of modern Computer Science - in particular being able to show that another architecture is able to implement a Turing Machine (that it is Turing Complete) provides a critical insight about an architecture.

      The von Neumann architecture is concerned with the architectures of practical machines (but can also be applied to more abstract architectures).

      I don't think anybody would seriously tout a physical implementation of a Turing Machine as a model for a usefully practical computing engine.

      "Turing might have had a bit of a blind spot when it comes to working with others"

      Hmm, I think he would not be alone in that respect - even in the context of WWII where the stakes were so high there were plenty of "personalities" who seemed unable to "play nicely" with others.

      1. prandeamus

        Re: A nice idea but seems impractical

        Moreover, as I understand it, the various huts at Bletchley Park were often deliberately kept in the dark with regard to what their colleagues were doing - Loose Lips Sink Ships and that bally gubbins, what?

  13. prandeamus

    Part number

    What's the Lego part number for the infinite paper tape?

    1. steelpillow Silver badge

      Re: Part number

      It's an exact decimal representation of pi

  14. NightFox

    I've been using Stud.io for years but it was only on seeing it written in this article that I 'got' the name.

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