Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!venera.isi.edu!rod From: rod@venera.isi.edu (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: LEGOs -- computationally complete? Message-ID: <9981@venera.isi.edu> Date: 3 Oct 89 16:48:18 GMT References: <3300071@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <8144@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Reply-To: rod@venera.isi.edu.UUCP (Rodney Doyle Van Meter III) Organization: Information Sciences Institute, Univ. of So. California Lines: 11 I vaguely recall an article (Scientific American, perhaps?) from a few years ago that talked about mechanical computers, specifically some simple state machine. It was in the guise of some ruins found on a South Pacific island, I think, with ropes and logs changing and representing the state of the machine. I no longer even recall whether it was real or some fiction created for the purposes of the article. A quick scan of Dewdney's columns over the last three years might provide a clue. --Rod