Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #09168
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: "Ben Hitchcock" beh01@uow.edu.au
Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 13:39:06 +1100
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: BEAM LEGO was microcore experimentation kit
Why not use cable with plugs and sockets - that is, make a whole heap of
little veroboard units, each with two cables coming out of it.
One cable has a plug on it, the other cable has a socket. You could then
make whatever shape you liked - 2 neuron ring, 5 neuron ring, whatever. I
think solid units would be a bit too limited in the topology for true
experimentation.
You could then have other optional units that could act as summing points -
so it would be a unit with one plug (output) and two sockets (input).
People could then design their own units based on this idea so that you
could do that tetrahedron idea someone was talking about, all based around
the same bus.
A 9-pin serial connector seems to be pretty common, and very cheap. If you
don't want to shell out the money for heaps of backshells then you could
make your own - just drown the wire side in epoxy.
In fact, you only need one side to be flexible - you could solder one
connector directly to the veroboard, and only have ONE cable coming out of
it.
On the veroboard could be terminals for power, input, output, and a pot to
adjust the delay.
You might also want put more than one neuron in each unit - no problem.
Since we are using hex inverters anyway, we have six inverters doing nothing
- so it's pretty easy to add a cap and a pot to it.
Now another unit could be a power unit - it just plugs right into the chain,
and the pulse wires go straight 'through' it without this unit being part of
the chain.
I think the most important thing here is standards. If we make all our
units to conform to the same standard then we could have a meet somewhere
and everyone's units could plug into everyone else's units, to make a
monster nervous net!
Anyway, enough dreaming,
Ben
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