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blog: begin detailing my home-logic project

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title = "Towards Manufacturing Logic Devices at Home"
date = 2022-05-26
description = ""
extra.hidden = true
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open source rules the software ecosystem. we have Linux, GNU, and all the applications on top.
your device is near-infinitely hackable... at the software layer.
with Risc-V, Framework, and earlier projects like Novena, we're beginning to achieve
some of this same hackability at the hardware layer.
but the base layer -- the actual manufacturing of integrated circuits -- remains this
impenetrable wall. players like Sam Zeloof do some (small-scale, proof-of-concept)
IC manufacturing at home. and there's some defunct projects like HomeCMOS. but otherwise,
the space is close to a vacuum. how do we make inroads?
## We Don't Need Perfection
we don't need 5 GHz clock speeds and mobile-level power-consumption out of the gate.
even a 10 kHz, 1000 logic-element device has *some* value (say, as a keyboard driver).
once we have a foot in the door, incremental improvements can make the technology more
widely applicable. our problem of open-source computation is one of bootstrapping.
Silicon devices aren't friendly to manufacture. the equipment is expensive, the
chemicals are dangerous, the tolerances are small, and the physics/chemistry is
college-level to Phd-level.
when i was in middle school, i learned about electromagnets.
my dad took me to the hardware store and we bought several iron bolts,
annealed copper wire, paperclips, thumbtacks, and a lantern battery.
within a day, i had a two-bit electro-mechanical adder.
each bit was represented by three tacks and a paperclip. the paperclip was fixed to one
tack (A) and freely rotatable such that at one rotation it would bridge an electrical
connection to tack B and at a different rotation it would instead bridge a connection
to tack C (logic '0' and logic '1', respectively). by introducing an electromagnet,
i could conditionally pull the paperclip to one orientation or another.
it was in effect a relay, and since the tacks and paperclips could conduct electricity,
the relays could feed into each other.
relay computers were a thing. and they're simple enough that a motivated 12-year-old
can build one. they have a few notable downsides, but the largest for us in this
context is that they're very labor intensive to manufacture/assemble.
## Non-Silicon Forms of Computation
TODO: mention: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluidics
NOTES:
Pneumatic Logic: https://www.instructables.com/Pneumatic-Logic-Gates-Made-With-Simple-Tools/
# TODO: read 2020-09-25-technology.txt
TODO: read http://www.hpfriedrichs.com/radioroom/cu-diode/rr-cu-diode.htm
# TODO: read 2020-10-04-other-magnetic-logic.txt
TODO: magnetic amplifiers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliott_803#Hardware_description (it uses cores for computation, and transistors to amplify the output)
# TODO: read 2019-08-18-resources.txt
TODO: 2020-04-05-unconventional-computing.txt
Material Matters Basics Vol. 8: covers PDOT/PSS; conductive polymers
TODO: Acquire: Material Matters Basics Vol. 6: The Fundamentals of Organic Transistors
ion-beam lithography