In article <4a8461d0@news.povray.org>,
Warp wrote:

> Daniel Bastos <dbastos+0### [at] toledocom> wrote:
>> Taking this seriously, an abacus is not comparable to a computer. The
>> abacus is like... just the RAM memory. We need a processor.
>
>   Actually an abacus is more like one single integer register (or a few,
> if you split the "bits" among several "registers"). It could only be used
> to store and manipulate one value (or a couple) at a time. You would not
> only need a processor to actually execute the raytracing opcodes, but you
> would also need some external "RAM" to store intermediate results. The abacus
> by itself is certainly not enough for any of this.

Hm. I don't really know how an abacus works. I only have a vague idea,
which is (or was): you move those beads to remind you of numbers. :-)
So I said: well, that's just RAM.

Anyway, I could go out on the web to find out how it works, but if you
feel like, why not explain it to a slow person?

>   (Not to talk that an abacus probably wouldn't have enough "bits" to do
> any kind of sensible raytracing anyways.)

Indeed. But we can imagine a huge one?

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