Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 397 Vacuum Diode

Although it was a competition, neither Wei'er nor Perfectcot were on guard against each other. Instead, both of them displayed their best skills and exchanged technical ideas.

"It's amazing that you can make this big thing move just by relying on these gears! How did you do that? Just by the rotation of these gears?" Wei'er was shocked by the autonomous core of the autonomous robot made by Perfect. She originally thought that Perfect used puppet technology to achieve robot autonomy, but she didn't expect that she relied on pure mechanics.

In response to this, Perfect did not hide it, but nodded and said: "Indeed, it relies on the rotation of these gears, digitizing the instructions one by one, and then through the rotation of these gears, the digital output drives other gears to rotate, thereby realizing its operation.

But the core part is the instruction set, which is to convert our normal spoken sentences into digital codes. This is the core part of the system, and it is also the part that I really spent a lot of time and effort to guess. "

After hearing this, Wei knew that this instruction set was the core part of Perfectoct's technology.

But she didn't take any chances. She just asked Perfect: "How many instructions can this big thing store? How efficient is it?"

"From the current perspective, the number of data instructions it can store is not large. After all, it is just a mechanical gear, and the amount of information it can store is very limited. It is impossible for me to use the technology I used on the alchemical doll on such a large machine." Perfectcott told the truth. As for the technical difference she mentioned, it was nothing else but a simple cost issue.

The differential engines used in large machinery are larger in size and have more power to drive them, but the gears are also relatively larger.

After all, it is easy to damage those precision gears when small gears are driven by great power.

Therefore, correspondingly, it would be impossible for Perfect to use some of the sophisticated technologies she applied to alchemical dolls on large machinery.

Moreover, the cost is not worth it. The gears and springs used on those alchemical dolls are all precision-processed to watch-level standards, and some of the shafts are made directly of gems. The cost and labor are quite staggering.

That is to say, this world has the ability to easily obtain precision processing through alchemy. Otherwise, precision gears of this level can only be produced by watchmakers who hammer them out bit by bit by hand, or by waiting until technology develops to the point where lathes can be used for precision processing.

As for whether it is possible to use precision gears to drive large machinery? Actually, it can be done if Perfect is willing to spend time.

Even now, she doesn't need to design it herself. She only needs to drive the Cui Yu Lu to optimize and upgrade the design drawings and deduce related designs.

But this is not the optimal solution for efficiency and cost, and this kind of large machinery does not require such sophisticated components to increase its intelligence. As long as it can understand commands and perform corresponding operations, it will be fine.

After all, alchemical dolls are meant to be used as "people", while large machines are used more as tools. "People" need to be smart enough to cope with the needs of accurately executing commands in complex environments, but machines working in fixed environments do not need this.

After all, Wei'er was the top alchemist back then, so of course she understood this principle.

So after Perfectcot gave a few simple explanations, Wei'er said that she understood, but then she raised a new question: "Do you have any good ideas about how to improve the efficiency of this machine? After all, you designed this thing, and only you know how to improve it." Wei'er didn't mind asking Perfectcot for advice just because she was going to compete with her. It's not that one of them is inferior to the other, it's just that she is simply not familiar with the equipment designed by Perfectcot.

Left to figure things out on her own, she would be able to figure out how the Difference Engine worked, and even understand the concepts of mechanical logic.

But doing so will waste a lot of time. Why repeat useless work when the problem can be solved by just asking one question?

Perfect had no intention of keeping this to herself, and except for not telling Weier the instruction set and programming of the mechanical logic core, she told her everything else she could.

Not to mention programming and instruction sets, what’s more, it’s difficult for Wei’er to understand this whole thing.

After all, she lived more than a hundred years ago, and her knowledge structure and thinking patterns have long been fixed. Although she is still constantly learning new knowledge, her ability to accept new things is far behind.

Moreover, as an alchemist who relied on puppet technology to become a legend, she was more accustomed to the things made by her own puppets rather than Perfectoct's digital programming.

However, after the two had another round of technical exchanges, Wei'er, who had already understood the working principle of the difference engine, expressed dissatisfaction with the computing speed of this system.

Although there is no direct relationship between the computing speed of a Difference Engine and its size, there is nothing wrong with a faster Difference Engine being larger, unless alchemy can be used to perform high-precision processing and reduce the gears and components to a very small size.

Moreover, its data storage is also very poor. The differential engine used in large robots has a total of nine storage columns, and one storage column can only store a set of numbers, that is, one instruction. This is really not enough for the effect that Wei'er wants to achieve.

So she proposed a new design idea: "I will use puppet technology to make a unit that can perform calculations, and then connect multiple units together. One unit is only responsible for the calculation of one digit. This should greatly improve the speed and efficiency of calculations?"

When Perfect heard what Wei'er said, her head couldn't help but buzz, as if a thunder exploded in her mind.

Yeah, why should I limit myself to gears and levers?

In this era, the application of electricity is basically blank, but this does not mean that we cannot develop an electronic computer!
If we can’t make chips or transistors ourselves, can we make vacuum diodes?
And even if the vacuum diode cannot be made, as Wei'er said, it should be easy to make a simple unit that can perform calculations, right?

Thinking of this, Perfect asked Weier in a hurry: "Can the computing unit you made be made small enough? I don't need it to have very complex functions. It just needs to be able to recognize positive and negative signals."

"That's very simple. As for making it small enough, that's no problem. With my current level, I can make it about the size of a grain of wheat. Is that big enough? If you want it to be smaller, I'm afraid you'll need to borrow the Philosopher's Stone from me." Wei'er thought about it and gave an answer based on her current level of strength.

(End of this chapter)