
The Embroidered Computer - eternalban
http://www.ireneposch.net/the-embroidered-computer/
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MarsAscendant
I find a different project on the website, Drapery FM
[[http://www.ireneposch.net/drapery-fm/](http://www.ireneposch.net/drapery-
fm/)], even more interesting. It's a wool installation that transmits its own
creation story over the radio.

To me, it feels like one of those Clarke's Third Law-tier devices that work
seemingly by magic.

~~~
hopler
Magic? It's aesthetic, but technically it's simply a circuit that with the
wires woven together instead of printed in traces on a board. Magic-like tech
is the reverse, the amazing minituarization of circuitry to microscopic size.

The women computer is a reverse Third law -- sufficiently antique technology
is indistinguishable from magic.

~~~
filleduchaos
What exactly is a "women computer"?

~~~
gumby
I assume it was a typo -- possibly even autocorrect -- for "woven"

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elvinyung
This reminds me of core rope memory [1], AKA "little old lady" memory, which
was literally a ROM that was manually woven.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory)

~~~
kibwen
On the topic of cool old memory technologies, see also mercury delay line
memory, which involves a cylinder of mercury into which you transmit pressure
waves to encode information, and to read it back you wait for the particular
offset in time when the beginning of the data you need is reflected back to
you:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory)

~~~
blattimwind
Sounds similar to surface acaustic wave filters and delay lines, which were
e.g. commonly used in televisions (to make the color signal of the preceding
line accessible while drawing the next line, it needs to be delayed by a line
(64 µs). These work by turning the electrical signal into a mechanical strain
wave travelling mostly on the surface of the substrate, where it can be
filtered by mechanical means (think tuning forks, but etched into the surface)
or simply delayed by the path length. The "receiving" end then turns the
mechanical wave back into electricity.

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benj111
So if you make the case that the jacquard loom was the first computer, the
first computer was for weaving, and this is a woven computer.

Theres a nice circularity there.

Or skynet's plan B?

~~~
vanderZwan
Nice thought! Given that this is an art piece, you can be very certain that
this circularity was part of their thought process.

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okl
I think the gloves on that site are particularly interesting because they show
a high integration of textile and electronics with a practical application
that actually makes sense.

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Isamu
Zoom in on the second photo and see the relays flipping, really cool.

They don’t describe how they made these decorative relays. Does anyone have
any details?

[edit] I wanted to emphasize that this goes beyond the expected “sew
prefabricated components to cloth” and instead is pretty much all embroidery
(maybe crochet also.) That is several kinds of awesome.

~~~
eternalban
[http://www.stitchingworlds.net/reflection-
dissemination/book...](http://www.stitchingworlds.net/reflection-
dissemination/book-stitching-worlds-exploring-textiles-and-electronics/)

~~~
tyingq
This page on the site specifically shows the relays:
[http://www.stitchingworlds.net/experimentation/experimentati...](http://www.stitchingworlds.net/experimentation/experimentation-
crochet-switches/)

~~~
Isamu
Crochet relays - that is awesome. Thank you.

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mechagodzilla
I really want more details about what the logic is doing! All I can find so
far is the one blurry logic diagram

~~~
userbinator
The logic diagram appears to contain two registers, an ALU, and some control
logic. The ALU is bit-serial, judging by the width of the datapaths and the
mudems connecting the two parts. I don't see memmory, so to call this a
"computer" in the modern sense is stretching it a bit; this is a piece of one,
but with a very interesting construction technique.

~~~
jonnydubowsky
This comment helped me to get a better sense of what is and isn't happening
within this project. I have to think it through a bit more, but wonder if
given the right middleware, or by cheating a bit in the connections (using an
arduino), you could setup a weaving device that utilized the khipu as storage,
so the logic could record new sets of knots to a khipu...?

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justusthane
This is beautiful. I really enjoy and am intrigued by what I think of as the
"weird frontier" of technology...things that blur the line between tech and
craft like this, offline/distributed tech projects like Scuttlebutt, DIY
hacker projects, or anything that uses technology in unconventional and
creative ways. Does anyone have favorite blogs or websites that revolve around
this sort of content?

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pharke
I wonder if you could also add magnetic core memory to this. The ferrite beads
and their wires could make an attractive pattern.

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JohnJamesRambo
*Embroidered.

And that is really interesting.

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ryanmarsh
Thought I was going to see the core rope memory of the Apollo Guidance
Computer.

Beautiful nonetheless.

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bibyte
Can anyone explains how does this computer works ?

Anyway this is really cool. A manual computer is a great project idea.

~~~
maxander
It looks like each of those little bead thingies is a transistor; each has
three wires leasing up to it with a little loop at the end. Presumably, a
charge from the loop to the side can flip the bead, and this makes it conduct.

It’s surprising that that works, to say the least. :)

~~~
MrEldritch
They're relays, not transistors. But you've got the right principle.

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nobody271
What do you think it means? Are we mere automata?

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kijin
The closeup is beautiful, but the overall design looks like a three-year-old
with a glitter pen drew all over the table. Most of the lines aren't even sewn
into the cloth.

Perhaps the next iteration could borrow design elements from actual embroidery
(leaves, flowers, etc.) and cleverly embed the circuit inside them. Or they
could go in the opposite direction, straighten out the lines, and make an
embroidery inspired by printed circuit boards. Either way, I hope they don't
stop here but keep making better versions. This could be turned into something
that people actually want to hang on their walls.

~~~
elsherbini
I like it how it is. It reminds me of Snail Drawings by Daniel Renali [0], it
makes me think about order/logic and the contrast to a lot of patterns seen in
nature.

[0] [https://www.danielranalli.com/recent-work/snail-drawings-
ser...](https://www.danielranalli.com/recent-work/snail-drawings-series/363)

