Binary adding machine made of wood - kinda cool

[futz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcDshWmhF4A

 

[3v0]

That is a good one. All most enough to get me back into the woodshop.

 

[kchriste]

I'm impressed that it still returns the proper result with multiple bit carries. Neat!

 

[wombweller]

Wow!!!! That's very cool.

 

[atferrari]

The soroban

I admire the guy that had the idea for that marble machine!

The japanese abacus "soroban" works in an eaquivalent way. It was explained to me, at Japan , 20++ years ago and it was impressive.

I dare to say that the main difference resides in the operator materializing "carry" / "borrow" with the beads in the upper row. I forgot the details and I hardly could do any calculation today.

At that time at least, employees involved in commerce had to pass a test on their use.

At the bank, the teller did the calculation with an electronic clculator, AND THEN CHECKED IT WITH THE SOROBAN.

 

[atferrari]

I'm impressed that it still returns the proper result with multiple bit carries. Neat!

Because they actually proceed strictly in sequence. Bay the way, the only possible way, as far as I know.

I am delighted with it!

 

[Mike - K8LH]

Very cool...

 

[RobertD]

I think the machine could be further developped with stationary mechanisms instead of marbles, to have the input and outputs working with push buttons, and have outputs with carry into 16 or even 64 bits, displaying hex and decimal results at the bottom. So instead of being just a binary counter, it would serve as a hex/binary/decimal converter. Then it would be more useful.