Blorph

Many people take computers for granted, as they use them to maintain their very lives. Few people realize how complex computers really are:

This is the Industrial Arithmatic Computing Unit! It was made by me, without the use of WorldEdit, buildcraft, etc. It is by definition a computer. It is entirely made from RedPower Wires, bundled cables, and RP logic gates. I also didn't use any Wireless Redstone. It Contains 17,506 Meters of Wiring, and 1,258 Logic Gates...
As in any computer, it is made of several Units, all interconnected by a tangled spiderweb of wireing. The Different Units are as follows:



The Adder

The Adder is a device that takes two 8-bit numbers in Binary Code, adds them together, then outputs another 8-bit number. 8-bits means that it cannot handle any numbers over 255, and cannot comprehend decimals, fractions, or negative numbers.

The Subtraction Units

These units, when used in conjunction with the adder, allow the computer to subtract. There are a few of these units, which are as follows:
The Selective Inverter: (Diamond Blocks) This will invert an 8-bit number, or not invert it, depending on the state of a separate bit.
The Subtraction Unit: (Gold Blocks) This makes the first and only the first 1 bit of an 8-bit number a zero.
The Special Adder: (Wood Blocks) This takes an 8-bit number in, adds one to it, then outputs it.
The bypass: (Red wool) This allows the computer to bypass these units when it doesn't want to subtract.

The Program Counter

(The Program counter is the Nether Brick thing in the front, the sandstone is the Program Memory) The Program Counter Is a simple device that outputs a 5-bit number, that increases by one each time it receives a pulse. This is used to keep track of where the computer is in its program. (Like a finger in a book)

The Program Memory

Yes, those are all levers. They are carefully switched to a binary code in 24 "bytes" of 5-bits each. (I know a byte is supposed to be 8-bits, but for conveinence I refur to any bundle of bits that specifies a single positive integer to be a byte.) These bytes are essentially ROM, Read-Only Memory, that contains the instructions for the computer. The program I have here will be explained later.

The Control Rooom
Exterior

Main Section

Looking down the room

This room controls the computer. Simple as that. Most of the controls are labeled. In the last picture, all the lamps running down the left side display the state of the 13 bytes of RAM. The last set of levers on the Far wall are for manual input of data into the computer.

The RAM

If the processor was a person, the RAM would be his scratch-pad where he did his calculations. In my computer, it also serves as the permenant memory for all data.

The Multiplying Units

These three units permit the computer to multiply.
The Multiplication Unit: (Obsidian) This multiplies two 4-bit numbers, and them out puts four different 4-bit numbers. This is done in 4-bit, because multiplication doubles the number of bits. Multiplying two 4-bit numbers, gives you an 8-bit number.
The offset Unit: (Cobblestone) This takes the 4 4-bit numbers from the previous unit, and offsets them each by one. So, the first 4 bits aren't touched, but the second, if it was 0011, becomes 0110. 0110, becomes 1100. Etc.
The Multiplication Control: (Wooden Planks) This unit tells the System to output the final four 8-bit numbers to the RAM. Then, these four bytes must be added together by the Adder, and then you will have your answer.

The Processor Decoders

Arguably Part of the Processor, these take the Commands from the Program Memory, and then does something with it. There are 45 of them, each one set to a different code. When the a 6-bit byte is inputed, only the decoder that matches, will output a 1. This will then tell the processor to do.. whatever that bit was connected to.

The Processor Itself

The Workhorse of the computer. It is remarkabley simply, if not huge. It (mostly) just flips on and off switches. These switches can connect any 13 of the RAM bytes to the first two of the Processors "Buses", and the first 10 bytes of RAM to the third Bus. The first two buses go to the adder and the multiplier, the third is the result that comes back from the adder. By controling this, the computer can do alot.

So... How does all this work?
Well... Lets go through this simple 11 step program.
a =(b + c)- d
a = e - d
Add a number, then subtract another. 11 Steps, and with a 0.2 Hz Clock speed, that takes exactly 55 seconds. So lets look at the steps.
1) Clear: We want to make sure the processor doesn't have any lingering data on it, also makes sure we are going to add.
2) RAM Byte 2 to Bus 1: Connect the second byte of RAM to the first bus of the processor (Adder Input)
3) RAM Byte 3 to Bus 2: Same as above, but with second bus and third byte.
4) RAM Byte 5 to Bus 3: This adds bytes 2 and 3, and puts the result on Byte 5. byte 5 holds b+c, in our formula.
5) Clear: Resets the processor for a new operation
6) Subtract: Make sure we will be subtracting
7) Byte 5 to Bus 1
8) Byte 4 to Bus 2
9) byte 1 to Bus 3: This last one subtracts Byte 4 from Byte 5, and outputs the answer to byte 1.
10) Clear: Keep things tidy.
11) Done: This command stops the clock, rings a bell, and resets the Program counter.
For those who are curious, this is the Binary Equivalent of that program:
100101 001100 011000 100000 100101 100110 001001 010111 100100 100101 101010

Weph! You Don't wanna see the 22 step program to solve the famous y=mx+b formula! O_O
In any case, the computer is a Private SSP world on tekkit, and you can't have it.
I would like to see any similar computers you guys have made, or anything similar to this (I didn't find anything when I looked... not with this scale) So Happy Tekkiting!

One single, tiny ad!?
YOU SELL OUTS!
 
I'm going to FTB!
... wait.
 
I'm going to...
Uh. Help me out?
 
But seriously, this sounds exciting for you guys. I hope it launches without a hitch.

Honestly the only real problem I have with the current Technic launcher is that there's no way to set stuff like the Java version or JVM options to use when launching Minecraft.  This is important for me to be able to run the game smoothly.  Are there any plans to add such a thing to this new launcher?  

Any games with mods are a good fit for us. Idunno that we're planning on being like the Nexus per se. Our trump card is our technological superiority, automating stuff, etc, which sets us apart from every company operating on user-created content. So many games have great stuff made by the community, but a really tiny portion of the community actually enjoying that stuff, because of the difficulties of putting together an install that uses that content. In Minecraft, 40%(?) of the community is enjoying Forge mods on a regular, active basis. That's unheard of! It's not just us making that happen, of course, there are tons of other launchers and stuff like Multicraft and the Magic Launcher have been around forever. But the point is that Minecraft doesn't just have a community producing great content, we have a community producing better ways to enjoy that content, and that's very unusual. A lot of game communities could benefit from the sort of tech we produce.

Our future tech architecture will have the idea of non-minecraft games in mind, but we don't want to talk about what games or what sort of games we have our eye on, because we're not just some dudes in an IRC channel anymore, and new business thangs take time and discussion. Just know that this new launcher and platform are just the beginning- we want to bring the enjoyment you get from us to everyone.

We argued awhile about the time, I think we're sticking with it.  It is a saturday night so hopefully staying up real late isn't a deal-breaker.  I know that it's made worse by the fact that you guys go on BST that night, which could not be helped.
 
If you can't make it, do the following two things:
1.  Tweet any questions you want us to answer to hashtag #newtechnic so we see it and can answer them on the live stream.
2.  Catch the stream on VOD & youtube when you wake up the next morning.

We did the livestream and it was fun. Watch the recording here:
http://www.twitch.tv/sctx/c/3976807
 
 
 
 

 
Saturday March 29th @ 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
Where: http://www.twitch.tv/sctx
 
Are you ready to see what is waiting for you with the new Technic? Are you pumped to see just how gosh-darn pretty it will all look? Then you should make some space on Saturday, March 29th where sct, CanVox and I we will be livestreaming the new Technic Platform, Launcher, designs and features for both, and general chit chattery. We'll be answering questions, swerving wildly off-topic and probably just being idiots.
 
Topics to be Talked About:
New Platform and how rad max it is!  Tired of upvotes being the only way to sort packs? Us too! New Launcher and how max rad it is!  Looks great, performs better. Platform integration means doing more within the launcher itself from the comfort of your desktop (Linux, Mac and PC's are all invited) How great both of them work together in wonderful ways!  I'd say 'synergize' but I'm pretty sure you have to be a giant company to use that word. Why sct constantly says things like "omg you guys elastic search" while he's all sweaty and breathing heavy!  This happens more often than you'd think! Where Technic could go in the future!  We want to move into new directions, new games. Making things easy for every gaming community to enjoy itself is a pretty rad goal we think. New art!!  It's so fresh and so clean, we'd like to have some posters and shirts someday! Real world costs and how we plan to pay for all of this!  We're down 3 kidneys and two mortgages!  
Joking aside, costs for operating Technic have grown dramatically in the last year, and spiked hard when we launched Attack of the B-Team. Because the new Platform and Launcher include so many new features that are going to blow your minds, we've got some decisions to make on how to pay for all this. Right now we have a significant hosting bill across two services, we have three full-time people who "do" Technic exclusively, and we have a few other various people that do incredible work for the community. Like most websites Technic's lifeblood is ads on our site, but with the new features and services we're going to provide and costs being what they are *right now*, we have to do something else. Rather than curse  ourselves to sell out to a much larger company we are determined to do this ourselves. Since the new Launcher integrates with the new Platform in such a way to allow lots of things to be done within the Launcher (as opposed to having to go to the website) we're looking at having a single small ad (300x250) within the launcher itself. Nothing is set in stone and we certainly don't want to upset the community, but the reality is things cost money and they have to be paid for somehow. 
 
We don't have a time set for when the stream ends, but typically when we hang out privately we do it for an hour or two, so plan on that if you'd like to stay for the whole thing.
Any questions or concerns about anything I've said above or about the stream in general post em' here or tweet with the hashtag #newtechnic!  On the stream, we'll be answering questions posted to twitter and in the stream chat.
 
See you guys at Saturday March 29th @ 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

It is a HP Envy 700qe, with a i7-4770 3.4GHz, 32GB DDR3-1600MHz, A terabyte of space (I have more drives, so not that important), Blu-ray etc, a 4GB NVIDIA GeForce GT640 graphics card (This will determine my final decision), For the OS, It has Windows 8 installed (I'm planning on adding 2 more drives so I can triple boot Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X -hackintosh!).
So how would this computer do for:
Minecraft and Tekkit and stuff (What else do you think I was using it for?) Recording videos (Yes, I actually want to add to the mass of videos already done) Doing some stuff with blender Programming Mods? Programming apps for iOS (On the mac drive) Will it do all these things to the (near) maximum? It comes with a monitor and I can get a microphone easily, Mac OS X Mavericks is free and I can put it on to a flash drive to install it, Most of the software that I want is free. My current computer (a 2011 macbook air, 4gb ram) has gotten old and is now only suitable for typing and surfing the internet (Just vanilla minecraft will make the fan run enough to make it lift off the ground).

Can you all help me? Thanks.
 
EDIT: I've come up with a (somewhat) better build:
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2xY7h
  CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($279.99 @ Amazon)  CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.98 @ OutletPC)  Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($129.99 @ NCIX US)  Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($109.99 @ Microcenter)  Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card  ($349.99 @ Amazon)  Case: NZXT Tempest 210 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($55.98 @ Newegg)  Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($54.99 @ Microcenter)  Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer  ($19.98 @ OutletPC)  Total: $1030.89 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.) (Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-19 15:39 EST-0500) (This is the current price, Please suggest things to add/remove)