Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #00187
To: beam@corp.sgi.com
From: Jean auBois aubois@trail.com
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 00:01:24 -0700
Subject: [alt-beam] The BEAM clock challenge
I was wondering if you could design a BEAM clock. The sort of clock I'm
thinking of has two output variations. The first would have 6 LEDs to
indicate about how many minutes past the hour it is, each LED corresponding
to 10 minutes. It would also have 24 LEDs that indicate each hour of the
day.
The second variation would use the relative brightness of some electrically
powered light sources to indicate the time very roughly. In the first 10
minutes of the first hour of the day, the two light sources would be either
extinguished or off; near the end of that same first hour the hour light
source would still be about as dim (or still off) as it was earlier but the
minute light source would be its brightest; at the end of the day both
light sources would be their brightest.
The insides would have to be straight Nv/Nu/Suspended technology, without
the use of conventional registers (although someone has been using latches
to make bicores) or counters.
I figure that making the minute loop (if you did implement it with a loop)
would be trivial to make -- it could use a hexcore that has a ten minute
delay for each neuron. On the other hand the hour loop might need both
reliable 1-hour delays and some sort of synchronization with the minute
loop.
Can it be done? How?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/list/alt-beam
Free Web-based e-mail groups by eGroups.com
Home