The Difference Engine

[Daniil]

Today I lurking the internet in a search for a relay (on my car was broken a switch which turn on a stop signal when I press brake pedal. It was very dieselpunk mechanical switch, so I want to replace it with a bit more modern combination of magnet reed and relay).

But I found something which is much more interesting than just a relay!

Take a look at this: relay computer!

It is built by one guy from Portland Univercity, for educational purposes (as I can understand). Yes, today it's looks more weird than interesting, but - it's nice. 8 bit, wooden blocks, input by switches - romantics of early computers, like in old soviet science fiction, where mechanical computers controls the thermo-nuclear spaceships. 
And just hear the sound, it's like a railway steamer! you can calculate its "CPU" frequency by it!

Video


Also, another very interesting educational video - what is logical units of the computer and how to create them:
Making your own 4 bit computer from transistors

[humbert]

@Daniil - I think I understand why a computer that uses electromechanical relays instead of transistors would probably work with your car. As far as I know your car has no electronic parts at all except maybe the radio. Analog works only with analog, right? 

I would not rule out the possibility that human brain processes such as psychology could not be modeled by an advanced quantum computer. I don't know too much about quantum computing, but I've heard that with them it's possible for a qubit to be both 1 and 0 at the same time. Seems to me human psychology works the same way.

[Daniil]

@Daniil - I think I understand why a computer that uses electromechanical relays instead of transistors would probably work with your car. As far as I know your car has no electronic parts at all except maybe the radio. Analog works only with analog, right? 

Ha, you're wrong, comrade. I already set a automobile computer on my car. Ofcourse, it is russian car computer i.e., a hybrid of school calculator and missile guidance block. But it works - it calculates RPMs, voltage output of generator, oil and external temp and so on. Very nice and small thing. But you right analog works well only with analog - if Volga would had an onboard computer, it would be a relay-based one.

I would not rule out the possibility that human brain processes such as psychology could not be modeled by an advanced quantum computer. I don't know too much about quantum computing, but I've heard that with them it's possible for a qubit to be both 1 and 0 at the same time. Seems to me human psychology works the same way.

Well, today I can't say this with full assurance. I read some articles about quantum computers, and I understand that I understand nothing. It's much more complicated than our good old machine commands of x86. I will read some more serious books about this, and then can say something with more assurance.
Also, I (at my job) have deal with different computer models of human heart, and I can say that main difficulty isn't calculate a model - with multi-GPUs and GPGPU calculations we have REALLY many computing power. The main difficulty is to create such model. And that's, damn, only a heart, just a pump made of meat (very primitive and bad designed pump, btw.) If we want to create a model of human psychology, we must firstly understand what we want to create, i.e., understand our own psychology a bit deeper.

[humbert]

You created an ECU (Engine Control Unit), i.e., an electronic car computer for your car? There wasn't one on there before? If not then how do you connect it? Also, what exactly does your computer do?

Few scientists (if any) understand the quantum world. Many rules of physics don't apply at the quantum level. With respect to what you mentioned regarding the heart and human psychology, obviously you're referring to the complexities involved in writing the proper software. As you know, the most complex quantum computer is useless if there is no software to take advantage of its features. Computer mapping human psychology is impossible with a conventional digital computer regardless of how good the software is. Not so for quantums, or so I think.

[Daniil]

You created an ECU (Engine Control Unit), i.e., an electronic car computer for your car? There wasn't one on there before? If not then how do you connect it? Also, what exactly does your computer do?

I didn't "create" it. On Volga, as on all soviet cars, never were any electronic ECU or any type of computer (on russian cars first ECU was on VAZ-2113 (Lada Samara 2) at 2004). But, ofcourse, today it's not comfortable without it (in all soviet cars, for example, is no tachometer). So, here in St.Petersburg one small firm created a series of small car computers, which can be installed on most soviet cars. I bought one of this and install it on car.

It is a small box with wires and simple display like on electronic watch, it can work as watches, tachometer, thermometer, voltmeter and a kind of trip computer.
It connects to power and ground, and it have 2 sensors.
First is for tachometer - it connects to control wire of ignition coil and enumerate count of ignition impulses. It knows a rate of impulses (you set up this in control menu), and basing on this, calculates RPM. (For example, ZMZ-24D engine in my Volga have 4 cylinders, and do one turn of crankshaft after 2 combustion cycles in cylinders. So I set up "1 per 2" mode, ECU calculates this, and shows me RPM). You can set up a RPM warning, ECU will beep if you exceed allowed RPM.

Second sensor is a temp sensor, I doesn't connect it yet, but I want to connect it to hull - at winter it's useful to know outer temp.
Also it measure voltage of power supply (and beeps if it is too low). Also it can work as watches.

You also can set up a trip control function (set up a fuel consumption values at low and high RPM,  set up how many fuel is in tank, and it will aproximately calculate distance you can run), but it is so approximately, that I doesn't use this feature.

[humbert]

@Daniil - based on what you just explained, I'm under the impression the car computer you have is mostly a complex passive sensor to tell you what's happening. Cars sold in America have active ECU's, among other things they monitor the amount of fuel injected into the cylinders. There are strict standards on efficiency (km/liter) and air pollution - without an active ECU achieving them is impossible. That's precisely why they're called "Engine Control Units".

Of course I assume your car has a manual transmission. It's said that here in America, a manual transmission is an anti-theft device.