frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Millihertz 5 Mechanical Computer (2022)

https://www.srimech.com/MHZ5.html
95•gene-h•7mo ago

Comments

thechao•7mo ago
I've always wanted to build (distinct) mechanical computers out of the following kinds of elements:

1. Spur-gear differential; and,

2. Shishi-odoshi.

Both of these are saturating mechanical devices that can be used to build NAND gates; the latter, I think, would be very pleasing, if exceedingly slow.

For the spur-gear differential, you'd need to up-scale the output by a factor of 2 (since the output is half-speed), and use a locking wedge to build a one-way gear out of one of the spur-gear differentials. However, it has the nice property that the logic is made entirely out of a single element: the spur-gear differential.

Similarly, for the shishi-odoshi: you're going to have to do a bit of analysis (drilling a hole in the bottom part of the bamboo ladle), to figure out the in-flow and out-flow to build the basic AND gate, and then balancing out the NOT gate, to build your basic NAND. This is, obviously, very finicky; but, I supposed, that'd be quite a bit of the charm of a Zen computer garden?

hnlmorg•7mo ago
A shishi-odoshi ALU would be amazing to see…and hear too.

I love that idea.

blackhaz•7mo ago
I wanna run my neural net on shishi-odoshi.
rightbyte•7mo ago
Has any computer been built out of spur-gear differentials? Like maybe some sort of adder circuit, not necessarily a full instruction executing computer. The only uses I could find was what seems to me like the differentials being part of some sort of analogue computer.
thechao•7mo ago
Spur gear differentials are naturally adders (with carry!); so, traditionally they've only ever been used for analogue logic. They're overly complicated for digital logic: you need two spur gears to build a single gate (NAND) to perform a single binary operation. If you want any sort of reasonable lash characteristics you're going to need ~60 teeth. At that point, two 60 teeth spur gears give you a 3600-valued adder. That'd take something like 300+ spur gears in binary: it just doesn't make any damn sense.

I think the last time I looked at this, if I used the cast spur gears available I needed a staged approach to "start" the computer and a 1100 hp motor to run it.

rightbyte•7mo ago
> a 1100 hp motor to run it

Oh, ye that sounds impractical. A really big truck engine more or less.

thechao•7mo ago
Convincing Mrs. thechao that we needed to drop 80000$ on a blown V8 to build a 4b 3 function calculator didn't workout, BTW.
rightbyte•7mo ago
Well I want to be on your side but I think one need to keep the dreams not within grasp but at least in sight.
jcgrillo•7mo ago
A huge steam engine might be the ticket, that'll solve your starting torque problem
byronknoll•7mo ago
I built some logic gates using water and a 3D printed "seesaw" that tilts to the left or right: https://byronknoll.blogspot.com/2022/06/water-computer.html
thechao•7mo ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
QuadmasterXLII•7mo ago
the shishi-odoshu seems like the more promising avenue. The key question in mechanical computing is never designing gates, its designing power amplifiers.
eccentricwind•7mo ago
What a gem of a site Thank you for sharing
mrandish•7mo ago
I just smile hearing the term "Millihertz Computer". I'd love it if building and designing mechanical and analog computers grew as a hobby/educational activity as I find them both fascinating and somehow satisfying.

Also, this 1950s Naval Training film explaining the fundamentals of how mechanical fire control computers work to solve complex problems is excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4

256_•7mo ago
I was incredibly surprised to find that this actually is a computer. Normally when you hear about a "computer" constructed in an unusual medium, it turns out to just be a binary adder or an analogue computer. I've learned to expect disappointment.
ryukoposting•7mo ago
About 8 years ago I visited TU Chemnitz and they had a lab making similar things to this. It wasn't clear to me what the goal was, but it was very cool nonetheless.
ogogmad•7mo ago
Is anyone going to produce a proof-of-concept Analytical Engine?

Will robots (which will hopefully soon be available) be able to do it?

tenthirtyam•7mo ago
This brings to mind two stories: Exhalation by Ted Chiang (short story), and the Three Body Problem (specifically the human computer) by Cixin Liu (novel length).

Exhalation really gets me thinking about what it means to be sentient & self-aware. If the neurons in our brains could, even in theory, be simulated by logic gates then, equally in theory, a Turing machine could be sentient. I can even imagine a bunch of rocks being sentient: https://xkcd.com/505/

ICE's interest in high-tech gear raises new questions: 'What is it for?'

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/26/ice-high-tech-surveillance-lower-privacy-guardrails-0070...
2•standardUser•5m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I was tired of link shorteners, so I built Rediredge

https://leotrapani.com/blog/rediredge
1•trapani•7m ago•0 comments

Pg_textsearch: PostgreSQL extension for BM25 relevance-ranked full-text search

https://github.com/timescale/pg_textsearch
2•jascha_eng•9m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Motion controlled party games on the web

https://motionparty.net
2•oliwary•9m ago•0 comments

Debaite: Tool for multiple LLM models to refine ideas by arguing with each other

https://codeberg.org/viraptor/debaite
1•jv22222•11m ago•0 comments

A Proclamation Regarding the Restoration of the Em-Dash

https://blog.nawaz.org/posts/2025/Dec/a-proclamation-regarding-the-restoration-of-the-dash/
1•BeetleB•13m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Talent Scout – job matching and prep with an independent AI assessor

1•stephen-m-lee•13m ago•0 comments

Sooko.ai Launches AI Ecosysystem

https://www.sooko.ai/
1•Femiaguda•15m ago•1 comments

Show HN: QBridge, a clean, modern iOS alternative to Cordova and Capacitor

https://github.com/Qbix/QBridge/blob/main/README.md
1•EGreg•18m ago•1 comments

Paralysed man controls robots using China's BCI tech

https://scienceclock.com/china-brain-computer-interface-paralysed-man-controls-robots-neuralink/
1•ashishgupta2209•20m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Claudereview – Share Claude Code Sessions with PRs and More

https://claudereview.com/
1•eigen-vector•20m ago•1 comments

Pagebound is an independent Goodreads alternative

https://pagebound.co/
2•MajorBee•25m ago•0 comments

Deliberate Deliberation

1•Josf•26m ago•0 comments

Tracking Shell Scripts (and Python, Perl, etc.) with eBPF Is Hard

https://substack.bomfather.dev/p/tracking-shell-scripts-and-python
3•neil_naveen•27m ago•0 comments

The HTML Elements Time Forgot

https://www.htmhell.dev/adventcalendar/2025/22/
1•birdculture•27m ago•0 comments

Rolex Tries to Beat Watch Flippers at Their Own Game

https://www.wsj.com/finance/rolex-watch-secondhand-market-3ddb113e
1•bookofjoe•29m ago•1 comments

How uv got so fast

https://nesbitt.io/2025/12/26/how-uv-got-so-fast.html
1•zdw•29m ago•0 comments

Pre, Mid, Post-Training Way of Life

https://fakepixels.substack.com/p/pre-mid-post-training-way-of-life
1•jger15•31m ago•0 comments

Matz 1/2: A single email sparked Ruby's growth

https://en.kaigaiiju.ch/episodes/matz1
1•kibitan•33m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Ad-sentinel – An AI powered ad-blocker

https://github.com/johnmckay-reward/ad-sentinel
1•jmkni•34m ago•0 comments

Experts Explore New Mushroom Which Causes Fairytale-Like Hallucinations

https://nhmu.utah.edu/articles/experts-explore-new-mushroom-which-causes-fairytale-hallucinations
4•astronads•34m ago•1 comments

Matz 2/2: The trajectory of Ruby's growth, Open-Source Software today etc.

https://en.kaigaiiju.ch/episodes/matz2
1•kibitan•35m ago•0 comments

C/C++ Embedded Files (2013)

https://www.4rknova.com//blog/2013/01/27/cpp-embedded-files
15•ibobev•36m ago•4 comments

Bowie's ODE solver and the nonlinear pendulum

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2025/12/23/bowie-integrator-and-the-nonlinear-pendulum/
2•ibobev•36m ago•0 comments

ZJIT is now available in Ruby 4.0

https://railsatscale.com/2025-12-24-launch-zjit/
2•ibobev•37m ago•0 comments

I Exposed Minnesota's Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8AulCA1aOQ
1•almosthere•38m ago•1 comments

Poor Charlie's Almanack

https://www.stripe.press/poor-charlies-almanack
1•gregzeng95•44m ago•0 comments

Mostlymatter: A fork of Mattermost by Framasoft

https://packages.framasoft.org/projects/mostlymatter/
2•SubiculumCode•46m ago•0 comments

The Renaissance book that heralded growth

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-renaissance-book-that-heralded-growth/
3•pseudolus•46m ago•1 comments

Osint Your Future Employer

https://piotrmackowski.com/2025/03/28/OSINT-your-future-employer.html
2•ptrmc•48m ago•0 comments