Project:Ball Computer

Part 1: Introduction

Or how Flux's imagination got the better if him..

Long ago, when I was young, I received a copy of The Way Things Work. It's an awesome book and I spent many happy hours studying it. The two things that fascinated me most were nuclear power and electronic adders. I wanted to make my own water-based adder (I didn't have any uranium). I didn't really know where to begin and it stayed firmly in the realm of my imagination.

Fast forward twenty or so years and I've just joined the Space. Somewhere buried in my subconscious the idea is dusted off and *bam* it's back (2011-04-12). Water-based logic gates, memory, coloured water displays (think of the mixing)... this is what the MakerBot was made for! How many transistors did the Intel 4004 have? Only 2,300...

Today (2011-04-13) I mentioned this to Tom (Reading hacker extraordinaire) over tea. He loved it too and we started to think it through. Stay tuned for Part 2 where we find that it's going to be bloody difficult.