

First programmable 8-bit CPU built in Minecraft - aresant
http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=69299

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RiderOfGiraffes
Cross reference with the 16-bit ALU:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1782327>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1740482>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1738013>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1736805>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1736694>

~~~
monological
The guy that made the 16-bit ALU is not the same guy that made this thing.
FYI...

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RiderOfGiraffes
No, that's why I didn't call this a duplication. It's more of a "If you like
that then you'll like this".

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dflock
For a virtual environment to qualify as 'a sandbox', your users must be able
to create turing machines, out of stuff the found lying around. - Locks Law
(which I just made up :).

~~~
arethuza
I wonder if it is possible to mathematically model what characteristics of an
environment are relevant to be able to build an effectively Turing-complete
mechanism?

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jankassens
The environment needs to be Turing-complete.

~~~
dflock
All the ones that I've seen (minecraft, dwarf fortress, little big planet) are
100% mechanical, so I guess all you need is the ability to move things around,
plus some kind of basic physics, so that moving things around can have knock-
on effects. Most of the DF ones are fluidic computers
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MONIAC_Computer>) and the rest are mostly
falling blocks style. Quite Pratchett-esque.

I think Second Life is cheating though, because you can attach scripting code
to objects.

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thefool
Once its done, someone should start down the path of implementing minecraft on
it :)

~~~
mathgladiator
That would be ultra-meta.

There is something beautiful about that level of meta. I would be impressed if
someone built a active matrix display in it.

~~~
Deestan
Like this? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaoSzCfa9OM>

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petercooper
Caution curious geeks, don't spend more than 10 minutes near Minecraft if you
plan to get any serious work done over the next month ;-) (I hadn't played a
game for more than a day or two since GTA4 and after thinking it was stupid at
first, MC has sucked me in bad!)

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SwaroopH
To all those who question,"Why would you build such a thing?"

A. Because we can.

~~~
mathgladiator
The relevant phrase I give is "ars gratia artis" which MGM's logo of "art of
the sake of art"

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VladRussian
the CPU seems to be 2.5D - 2D plan with vertical register/etc orientation. 3D
anybody? Also, any chance somebody building/exploring non Von Neumann one?

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die_sekte
3D wiring in Minecraft is an enormous pain in the ass. In fact, the whole
thing is a big PITA. Want me to elaborate?

(I am sometimes working on a Minecraft CPU with a MOVE instruction set.)

~~~
Devilboy
I don't craft mines but it looks like the active 'wire' bits are not voxels
like most other things in Minecraft, but instead are painted on 2d surfaces
yea? Please elaborate!

~~~
die_sekte
They are voxels, they just have very specific placement rules. They take up a
full block but can't be stacked.

There's also the fact that the wires transmit information only 15 tiles. It's
possible to build repeaters though, but those repeaters have some lag and take
up space.

The hardest part are the memory cells. A single bit, even in the optimal
configuration, takes up 3x3x2 blocks.

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iwr
Next step: build a Von Neumann Universal Constructor!

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pilom
But can it play Crysis?

