[Thierry]

 Ramon Llul was from Spain (catalunia) and born in 1232. He created a tool made with "paper wheels". He called this tool "Alphabet" (this reminds me strangely a company name !) . The tool purpose was to convert muslims to catholicism EASILY with a system of questions and answers included in wheels. It s quite difficult to find his (free) book entitled "ARS GENERALIS ULTIMA". If someone could find...

Here is a video of a scientific explanation of the mechanism of the wheels and tables.

Up to 30 minutes you will get a description of his life. Starting 30 minutes there will be the explanation of his system. They explain in the end of the video another tool that he made : a kind of "election system"

One of his motto is really excellent. I totally subscribe to :" Any philosopher can be a good mechanic !"



Explanations here : https://youtu.be/wmjuqVw7gh4?t=30m13s

He s got even a DJ 

[Zero]

Cool stuff.

[ranch vermin]

haha! one for the crusaders.

I love these old computers,  if you manage to craft a good function,  you can finish it into golden and copper clockwork if you want to create a marvel of it.   If it was the function of your programming career it can be a good idea.

[Thierry]

haha! one for the crusaders.

I love these old computers,  if you manage to craft a good function,  you can finish it into golden and copper clockwork if you want to create a marvel of it.   If it was the function of your programming career it can be a good idea.

Indeed ! This could be a great challenge for swiss clock makers !

[Zero]

It's probably possible to make a mechanical turing machine... I like these things. Steam powered of course!

[Thierry]

It's probably possible to make a mechanical turing machine... I like these things. Steam powered of course!

Yes. If no steam or electricity then this could be made with a kind of winder (with perpetual movement if you connect the winder to a river stream!!!) . On this way this would be the first perpetual mechanical chatbot !  Going further... adding a mechanical input (I guess touch sensor only ?) and an action system and we could obtain the first perpetual mechanical AI ! 

[Zero]

  Yeah, it would have to be real big, you know, like an entire building full of gears just to spit out a few elizabot style answers...

[Thierry]

Yeah, it would have to be real big, you know, like an entire building full of gears just to spit out a few elizabot style answers...

The only really big thing would be the water wheel (for a perpetual movement). For the rest it would depend on material we are using. With metal we can make really really small mecanic systems (automatic watches are an exemple of perpetual small mechanic systems). With wood definitely yes this would be huge deal 

[ranch vermin]

There could be ways around complexity.  it might not be that big,   i wouldnt make one that was too big.

[8pla.net]

Let's take a closer look at the thinking machine of Ramon Llull...



Citaton: http://history-computer.com/Dreamers/Llull.html

[Thierry]

I would really love to print all the wheels but I don't have time to look for them.
I found an old video of a french catalan guy explaining how the wheels work. https://youtu.be/CfmRW7Hkw4I?t=13m55s