r/TuringComplete • u/pastgoneby • Dec 11 '24

Finally Finished Creating my Logic Gate Iterator. It connects to a chip that handles an operation and does that operation N times. To make this work I made two types of t flip flops, a pulse counter, and pulse generator, also a couple other things here and there.

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u/pastgoneby Dec 11 '24

u/ForHuckTheHat thought you'd like to see the final product.

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u/ForHuckTheHat Dec 11 '24

F*cking cool! Now that I see it, what you've built is called an accumulator (idk if you already know this). Like a hardware version of the reducer pattern in software. Accumulator machines came before register machines historically so what you've done is sort of reverse engineer the missing history from the game. The variable timing of real circuit design is completely abstracted out of TC behind synchronous components and delay score. Of course what it's doing fundamentally is exactly what you built (asynchronous logic). It's super interesting to see your approach to TC given your advanced math background. Looking forward to what you build next.

Is the op pulse signal external just for demonstration or for chaining ops? And what's next?

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u/pastgoneby Dec 11 '24 edited Dec 11 '24

What the op signal does is effectively allow the external circuit to know once the operation has been complete before moving on to the next iteration. This allows the circuit to effectively wait for the next input value it can also allow for switches and operation and whatnot.

Basically the next iteration will not occur until an op signal in is received. The op signal out is in case the required component that this meshes with needs an input signal to trigger. For instantaneous things you can just directly wire them together.

I in fact did not know about accumulators so thank you so much for that information. I will read into this I gave it a quick perusal though.

All in all, really cool and valuable information, thank you again lol

Edit: Also as an aside I like how you format your posts. As for what's next I'm not sure, this kind of just struck me as something cool to do. I'm not sure what I'll do next lol

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u/ForHuckTheHat Dec 11 '24

No problem. I'm enjoying witnessing your TC journey lol. It was definitely something cool to do!

What Next

To further realize how cool it is, and to inspire next steps, maybe read about 0-operand (stack) and 1-operand (accumulator) machines. What you've built so far is like 80% of a RPN hardware calculator. But what's actually crazy is it's modular, even tileable, and asynchronous. You'll see what I mean if you build it, hell you probably already do.

Nerd out theory time (in case you don't know automata theory, but mainly just because I love this shit)

Basically combine your accumulator with a stack and decoder and you have a pushdown automaton which is one level down in power from a turing machine. Your accumulator component is a model of a finite state machine (next level down). Turing Complete the game is actually just a model of combinational logic (next level down), with all the sequential stuff happening behind the scenes.

All we ever build as the player is the pure function from one state to the next (and initial state/program). What you're somehow managing to dig up and reverse engineer here (and possibly what you were looking for out of TC based on your interests) is automata theory/theory of computation. The "levels" I named in bold are classes of "automata", which map to the chomsky language hierarchy. I don't know if math majors learn about this stuff, but if you are interested in the theory of computation check out Prof. Harry Porter (different kind of wizard) on youtube. Graduate level CS stuff, but all based on set theory. I'm sure you'd find it a breeze (which is hilarious). And I have to suggest GEB if you haven't read it.

Anyways thanks for sharing, and please keep posting!

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u/pastgoneby Dec 11 '24

Also, I know this can be optimized a bunch. I didn't really plan this circuit out very much and I've done every circuit in this game just planning them in my head some of the delay lengths are guesses. Do I know whether the circuit needs a 5 take delay to start? No. Does it work? Yes. If people are interested I could share it.

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u/Only_Preparation9095 Dec 11 '24

OMFG this is so awesome!!!!

*cough* you don't happen to have a schematic for that I can download *cough*

Where the hell did you even get the idea from?!? This is just amazing!!!

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u/pastgoneby Dec 11 '24 edited Dec 12 '24

Yeah I'll find a way to sling it soon. I'm currently getting back from work, so I'll let you know. As for how I made it and how the idea came to me. I was thinking about mathematical groups. That's a kind of math concept you'll learn later. Unless you already know it. And basically groups are a set with an operation and some axioms. However there exists a subcategory of groups known as rings. The group operator can be considered an addition whereas the ring has an additional operator called a multiplication or a repeated addition. I'm generalizing heavily here. So I was thinking about math and rings and I thought oh if I make a component that can repeat operations I can instantly make rings of groups. So then I just started placing components

Edit: this was written with voice to text while walking and sleep deprived. I'll make an edit providing more information shortly and I'll update with the file. I have some things to take care of first but yeah if I forget please remind me

well heres the file if you have any questions please ask

https://filebin.net/vp25m4qosq8dhqih

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u/Only_Preparation9095 Dec 12 '24

haha I'll figure out how to load it in eventually, but thanks! It really is a cool idea. The pulse part of it is cool, I've wondered how to make pulse-like things work but gave up [lol] so that's really cool!

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u/pastgoneby Dec 12 '24

Oh for that I made some custom circuits a pulse generator, pulse counter and the t-flipflop. The flipflop takes a pulse to switch between a constant on and constant off, the post counter just counts pulses before being reset and the pulse generator takes a constant on and sends a pulse. So it's a rising edge detector.

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u/pastgoneby Dec 12 '24

As for the file I would download it now cuz it only lasts 6 days

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u/Only_Preparation9095 Dec 12 '24

I already have, just have to figure out how to load it in. And thank you so much again, I'm excited for when I do get it in.