In physics classes, we are often told to think about electrical circuits as analogous to plumbing circuits; pressure ~ voltage and volume flow rate ~ amperage.

However, I have yet to see anyone create a processor made entirely out of plumbing and fluid gates and valves, outside of the hydraulics used inside an automatic transmission to control shift points, I suppose. I could imagine all sorts of hydraulic switches and valves which could replace transistors in a large-scale, horribly complex, and quite slow computational machine. Why? For the sake of art I guess.

Binary optional.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 12 2008

Fluidics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics
background info [csea, Mar 12 2008]

Fluid memory http://en.wikipedia...coustic_delay_lines
In this generation, temporary or working storage was provided by acoustic delay lines, which used the propagation time of sound through a medium such as liquid mercury (or through a wire) to briefly store data. [BunsenHoneydew, Mar 12 2008]

BINAC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BINAC
An early project for the U.S. Air Force, BINAC attempted to make a lightweight, simple computer by using binary arithmetic. [BunsenHoneydew, Mar 12 2008]

Back in the 1960s, my dad brought home a kit for modelling something called "fluidics." [link] Now it seems there's a branch of this called "microfluidics," similar to what has been discussed here recently.
-- csea, Mar 12 2008


Back in the 1970s, my dad was designing hydraulically-operated car washes. He tried to explain "fluid logic" to me. It had ANDs, NOTs and ORs in it, IIRC. I don't know if he used it, or instead made up his own system.

I do remember he made a widget with a water jet at ankle level. If you blocked that, another nozzle let loose a blast of water that would knock you over. He said it was for cleaning hubcaps, but I never saw it do that.
-- baconbrain, Mar 12 2008


The Phillips machine is the example I was thinking of as well. My impression is that [RayfordSteele] has a general purpose Turing machine in mind, rather than a single-purpose analog computer. Am I correct?

If not a useful processor it would at least make a worthwhile educational display of the workings of a CPU.

The great wiki tells me that the Intel 4004 was constructed of 2,300 transistors. BINAC [link] used 700 vacuum tubes and 32 acoustic delay lines (literally fluid memory) [link]. Perhaps a largish shed would be sufficient.
-- BunsenHoneydew, Mar 12 2008


Fluidics was part of my computer science degree in the late 70s. The elements were about an inch square, and a bistable took a couple of elements. I think they may have been made by Honeywell
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Mar 12 2008



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