light bulb as CPU

if you took a light bulb and somehow managed to get it it turn on and off **really** fast IN THEORY could it be used as a CPU of sorts?


oh lord i need to stop drinking

 

Not at all.

 

but if it's all electrical impulses

 

0101010101010 on off on off ,,,,,with out it computers and all advanced electronics would not be here

simple bionary code ,,,Glenn


But your light bulb would end up being a strobe light ,,,not close to a computer LOLOL

 

That's an extremely simplified definition. In my eyes to be considered a CPU (for an ISA atleast) it would have to support atleast one instruction and this would require some kind of gates (unless of course your light bulb arguably supports nop)

 

well ... if you were to set it up in conjuction with a photoelectric/sensitive reciever of sorts ...

 

Forget the light bulb, just use the switch(es).

 

when I was in PLC school (Programible Logic Controlers)
the whole normally open and normaly closed contacts for relays
where defined as x and o
examine if closed meaning normally open
examine if open - meaning normally closed
because the processor can't except it otherwise

A PLC is just a little "computer" replaceing thousands of phisical relays
with simple "two positions"

and it till is only 01110100010010011010101
but to program its
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo ( mainly )
some times its / or \
but thats another story

but if you can get informatio going through the light bulb
why can't that be done
the pulses in a pc still have to be defined by something else, right
because even with out those pulses its still a cpu
just not functional
why couldn't you manually minipulate it


don't quit drinking
throw a couple back for the rest of us

 

A plain lightbulb operating on standard household AC power flickers about 60 times per second. Have not seen any computer power from this yet.

 

oh yeah! the 60hz computer!!! my kind of deal!

hehe, one similarity between the lightbulb and the cpu: both output about 70-100 watts of heat under load

 

What would that accomplish? You could send it data, but so what? My breathing I could send data. That doesn't qualify my lungs as a CPU.

 

The problem with a light bulb is that output = input. Voltage in, light out. No voltage in, no light out.

A cpu has the capability of varying the output depending on the input.

 

Pyrate,
Keep on drinking, as great ideas and hangovers have both been generated because minds were freed of normal restrictions. Wonder what Einstein was doing when he thought of quantum physics?

 

Daydreaming, I'd expect

And it wasn't just him who "thought of it"... but anyway.

It is possible to use an filament which could act as a rudiemntry transistor... i.e. energy is only outputted as light when the voltage is over a certain ammount. but if you wanted to do anything even remotley useful, you'd need a whole lot of these semiconducting lightbulbs

 

kinda like my flashlight bulb, i guess. it won't turn on at all unless there's at least 8.5v going through it. now, we need about 100 million of those and a huge heatsink, cuz 100 million resistors * 20 watts / bulb == 2 gigawatts of heat to cool down... not to mention photo sensors/relays... sheesh. anyone have a 2000000000 watt power supply?

 

In this case you and the switch would be the computer, not the bulb. I recall my computer engineering courses, computers represent 1 and 0 with different voltages, not the absence of voltage.

 

Nah, the switch (or rather a rheostat) would be the user interface, and depending on the voltage the light will either turn on or not. If you had two rheostats, you could add two numbers together and see if the value is over a certain number, say.

 

if you had two speakers
you could use a rheostat
and turn up the light bulbs
then they would blink
with the music

LOL

 

Nah, what you need there is a VU meter circuit (which is fairly simple, by the way).. and then have the lightbulbs linked up to be like a meter going up the wall. How cool would that be?!?

 

acctually
all I did was run wires to the lights
from the speakers
and the valume knob is a rheostat
so when I turn it up
the lights blink brighter

 

But then you're wasting your amplification power on the filaments, would act as a rudimentary compressor (more power, more light, therefore less energy through speakers, less power... hmmm... we're doing power in circuits in physics soon, I'll get back to you on that one )

 

Hey, I have an idea......(insert lightbulb, included below, over my head, to indicate bright idea)

If you bought a computer, you could use it as a computer......

Sorry, it's 3:30 am, and I can't sleep!