We ’ve all got hobbies that we in all likelihood spend too much prison term and money on . But only one of us has spentfour age and $ 53,000 building a elephantine computing machine that can wager Tetris .
James Newman ’s “ Megaprocessor ” is 33 feet broad , 6 foot high , and count half a ton . It ’s really , really big . It has 10,000 LED lights and 40,000 transistors , and yet , after all that clock time and money , the C.P.U. is only 20kHz .
“ If you ask yourself what do you do with a processor like this , ” Newman , a British applied scientist , says in the television above , “ the solution is that you could play games , likeTetris . ” So far , that seems to be all the jumbo computing gadget can do , but Newman does n’t seem to mind . ( Between this and thatTetris movie trilogy , the biz really is having a moment . )
“ The car on your desk may be a million times good than what I have built but mine is much prettier , ” he tell the BBC . Newman start out the labor to help himself visualize how microprocessors mould , and pointed out that while our paltry computers might do more things than a puzzler biz , his creation , which sits in his house , “ has 10,000 time more LED . ” He does have a point there .
The Megaprocessor Q&A on Newman ’s website is similarly square . What is it , you ask ? “ The Megaprocessor is a micro - central processor built large . Very large . ” And why ? “ Because I need to . ” To each their own .
[ BBC ]
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