In honor of Alan Turing’s hundredth birthday, Davy Landman, Jereon van den Bos, and Paul Klint built a Turing Machine out of LEGOs. And if you like, you can build one too. You can buy the LEGOS on the web, and the three Dutch researchers have posted the machine’s software to GitHub, the popular code repository and software version control service. “The beauty of the Turing Machine is that it is conceptually a very simple device,” Landman tells Wired. Turing would have turned 100 on Saturday. He was 24 when he described his Turing machine — originally known as the “a(utomatic)-machine” — a device that reads and writes symbols on a strip of tape according to a particular set of rules. In short, it’s a computer. The same basic concepts underpin every computer we use today. To build one, you need a tape, something to move it backwards and forward, and a head that reads and writes the symbols. Landman, van den Bos, and Klint built theirs using a single box of LEGO Mindstorms NXT, a set of LEGOs that includes various motorized parts and a mini-computer.
In this case, the tape isn’t really a tape. It’s a set of LEGO “angle connectors” that act as switches. Each connector can move back and forth between two positions, and these positions represent 1s and 0s. A rotating LEGO beam can move the connectors from position to position, and a light sensor reads the positions. Turing described a machine with an infinite tape, but the Dutch team didn’t have infinite LEGOS. They settled on a tape with 32 positions. The team then used LEGO’s simple computer — known as the NXT Brick — to execute instructions on their tape. They wrote these instructions using NXC, a simple language developed by the MINDSTROMS community, and they built an interface for the machine using the Rascal meta-programming language. In addition to open sourcing the code on GitHub, the team would have liked to include instructions for building the machine itself, but Landman says this hasn’t quite happened yet. “We fear that may turn out to be a larger project than the machine itself.”
He admits that the machine hasn’t quite been perfected yet. But that shouldn’t stop you. After all, this is Alan Turing’s birthday we’re celebrating. It’s an occasion to give your brain a bit of a stretch. Price - low to high Price - high to low The LEGO® Movie™ Unikitty Nightlight in Mulit LEGO® Batman Torch & Nightlight LEGO® DC Universe™ Batman Minifigure Clock LEGO® Movie Emmet Minifigure Alarm Clock LEGO® Batman Movie Minifigure Clock LEGO® Laval Torch & Nightlight LEGO® DC Comics™ Super Heroes Superman Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® Batman Movie Robin Minifigure Clock Lego® Star Wars™ Stormtrooper Minifigure Watch with Interchangeable Link Band LEGO® Friends Brick Digital Alarm Clock in Purple Lego® City Policeman Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® Superman Torch & Nightlight LEGO® Star Wars™ Luke Skywalker™ Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® DC Comics™ Super Heroes Wonder Woman Buildable Watch with Minifigure
LEGO® Time Teacher Kid's Minifigure Watch & Clock LEGO® DC Super Heroes Harley Quinn Minifigure Clock LEGO® Star Wars™ Boba Fett™ Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® Legends of Chima™ Worriz Kid's Watch Lego® Friends Olivia Buildable Watch with Mini-Doll LEGO® Police Officer Head Lamp LEGO® Chima Cragger Torch & Nightlight LEGO® Movie Wyldstyle Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® Star Wars™ Anakin Skywalker™ Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® Joker Torch & Nightlight LEGO® Star Wars™ Yoda™ Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® Movie Bad Cop Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® Star Wars™ Darth Vader™ Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® Movie Emmet Buildable Watch with Minifigure LEGO® Classic Buildable Watch with Minifigure Lego® Friends Stephanie Buildable Watch with Mini-DollLEGO System along with TECHNIC, is The LEGO Company's main line of building elements, minifigures and sets, and features the iconic standard LEGO brick which evolved from LEGO's first series of Automatic Binding Bricks that first appeared in 1949.
The new pieces were first marketed under the name LEGO Mursten in 1953 and from 1955 to 1970 in the System i Leg series of toys. Later it was simply known as LEGO System. Most System bricks can be used with TECHNIC bricks. LEGO System is also the brand under which most standard minifigure-compatible sets are marketed since 1978. The pieces in this line are smaller than DUPLO blocks. The iconic logo of LEGO System wasn't featured on boxes and catalogues until 1992. Most newer minifigure-compatible sets no longer feature the logo, although they are still considered a part of System. The 1×1-stud System-brick measures about 8×8×10 mm. The sizes of almost all other LEGO construction toys are derived from this size and can be combined with it. With the introduction of minifigure-compatible sets in 1978, three major playthemes were introduced, Town, Castle and Space, inside each of which were later added several new subthemes, that mostly consisted of new distinct factions of minifigures and were all related to the respective main theme's core subjects.
With Boats and Trains, two minor themes where introduced that complemented Town but were not counted as parts or subthemes of it. Another unique theme was Model Team from 1986, whose sets focused on more-or-less accurate scale reproductions of real-world vehicles and were not designed to be minifigure-compatible. Beginning with Pirates in 1989, LEGO added additional main themes to the LEGO System line that stood beside the three initial main themes. These four major theme made up the bulk of the LEGO System sets of that era and were also the most popular themes. Another minor System theme, Belville, was introduced in 1994, which contained larger figures and more specially-designed bricks. The next addition was Aquazone in 1995 followed by Western in 1996. Another small theme, Time Cruisers, was introduced in the same year. The now six major minifigure themes (Town, Castle, Space, Pirates, Aquazone and Western) were subjected to bigger changes in 1999: Space, Pirates, Aquazone and Western were discontinued.
Castle was rebranded to Knights' Kingdom. Town's core subjects were outsourced to Town Jr. and later City Center, while still being complemented by different subthemes which were in most cases only remotely related to city life. An exception was the smaller Adventurers theme from 1998 that was complemented with different subthemes until its eventual discontinuation in 2004. The smaller Alpha Team was introduced in 2001 and lasted several years longer than most other themes. Instead of slowly adding new factions and sets to existing main themes, most themes were now self-contained series of sets that, in most cases, had all of their sets released within the first year and only lasted for one or two more years. One of these new themes was Rock Raiders from 1999 and Life on Mars from 2001, a short-lived revival of the old Space theme. The other side of the medal were themes that were based on popular media franchises like Star Wars and Harry Potter. Those themes would regularly see new releases over the timespan of several years.