Project:Turing Machine

Srimech (JimM) is building a mechanical Turing machine. At the moment, this is a few full days work away from working, and will probably then need several days of fine tuning to make it run for a long period.

The plan is to make a machine capable of universal computation. It will be hilariously slow however.

4th Dec 2010: First test run. Direction line detached, electric. Completed cycle in 2'14". Faults: Moved forward only one grid position, ball bearing continued past finish row.

5th Dec 2010: First run with steam engine attached. Speed is about right. Elastic band keeps coming off the drive pulley but didn't melt, surprisingly. Moved one space back instead of two. Vibration is causing the dir & state box to shake off the maze.