http://aturingmachine.com/index.php

Too much time on his hands?  Deeply awesome?  Both? You decide!

I hope this guy works for a computer museum.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling togeher,
   but to different destinations.

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Darren New wrote:

> Too much time on his hands?  Deeply awesome?  Both? You decide!

Too much time? That's affirm!! O_O

Deeply awesome? Not really, no. It operates far, far too slowly to watch 
it do anything useful. It's not clear which symbol is currently "under" 
the R/W head. It's completely opaque why it writes the symbol it does. I 
could continue.

Technically it produces the same result as a [finite] Turing machine, 
and it's far nicer than anything I could ever build. That doesn't make 
it awesome though.

> I hope this guy works for a computer museum.

If he doesn't, he should...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Deeply awesome? Not really, no. 

I thought it was awesome that it actually reads the tape with a camera 
instead of cheating and storing anything in actual memory, for one.

 > It operates far, far too slowly to watch it do anything useful.

I think "TM" and "useful" aren't really intended to go together.

> It's completely opaque why it writes the symbol it does. 

I think the LCD display he isn't showing you in the videos covers that.


He also seems to be confused when he says it can compute anything 
computable. A Turing machine is a definition of computability, not a result.

There are clearly all kinds of things a TM can't compute, and certainly 
things a one-tape TM can't compute. We disregard those sorts of things 
*because* Turing defined computability in terms of TMs.

It's like saying passing the Turing test proves you're intelligent.  No, the 
Turing test is a definition of intelligence, and if you don't accept that 
definition, the test itself is meaningless.  You find that 90% of the 
arguments about things like the Chinese Room are simply arguments that the 
Turing test isn't a good definition.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling togeher,
   but to different destinations.

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>> Deeply awesome? Not really, no. 
> 
> I thought it was awesome that it actually reads the tape with a camera 
> instead of cheating and storing anything in actual memory, for one.

Well, if that's the case it's fairly awesome, but since you can't tell 
that by looking at it...

>> It operates far, far too slowly to watch it do anything useful.
> 
> I think "TM" and "useful" aren't really intended to go together.

OK, how about "interesting" then?

...actually, perhaps not.

>> It's completely opaque why it writes the symbol it does. 
> 
> I think the LCD display he isn't showing you in the videos covers that.

I'd prefer something more obviously visual, but may.

If there's one thing that *is* cool, it's that the eraser thingy 
actually works...

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"Orchid XP v8" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:4baf85b0$1@news.povray.org...

> Deeply awesome? Not really, no. It operates far, far too slowly to watch
> it do anything useful.

Well, it is an "actual" Turing machine, what do you expect?

> It's not clear which symbol is currently "under" the R/W head.

Fair critique. It would have been better to mount the scan head at the same
place on tape as the pen, maybe at an angle, or even from the bottom.

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>> Deeply awesome? Not really, no. It operates far, far too slowly to watch
>> it do anything useful.
> 
> Well, it is an "actual" Turing machine, what do you expect?

It's cool that it uses a pen to actually write numbers, but it instead 
it could just *stamp* them on there, typewriter style, it would be a lot 
faster. (And it wouldn't be moving the tape around, so it would be 
clearer which square is the current square.)

>> It's not clear which symbol is currently "under" the R/W head.
> 
> Fair critique. It would have been better to mount the scan head at the same
> place on tape as the pen, maybe at an angle, or even from the bottom.

Not to mention the erase head.

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Invisible wrote:
> Well, if that's the case it's fairly awesome, but since you can't tell 
> that by looking at it...

I guess you didn't actually watch him describe the machine's workings.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Yes, we're traveling together,
   but to different destinations.

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