Although it was supposed to be a competition, neither Weir nor Perfikot displayed any intent to guard against the other. Instead, both of them showcased their best technologies for a technical exchange.
"It’s truly amazing that you can get this big machine moving with just those gears! How exactly did you do it? Is it just relying on the movent of these gears?" Weir was shocked by the autonomous core of the robot that Perfikot had created. She originally thought that Perfikot used magical puppet technology to achieve the robot’s autonomy, but unexpectedly, it was all purely chanical.
In response, Perfikot didn’t hold back and nodded, saying, "Indeed, it’s relying on the movent of these gears. Once the instructions are digitized, the movent of the gears outputs the numbers to drive other gears, thereby achieving its operation.
However, the most core part is the instruction set, which translates our normal speech into digital codes. This is the most crucial part of the system and the part where I truly spent a lot of ti and effort to complete."
Upon hearing this, Weir understood that this instruction set was the core essence of Perfikot’s technology.
Yet she wasn’t covetous of it; she only asked Perfikot: "How many instructions can this big machine store? How efficient is it?"
"From what I can see now, it’s capable of storing only a limited number of data instructions. After all, it’s just chanical gears, and the amount of information it can store is very limited. It’s impossible for to use the technology from the Alchemy Puppet on such a large machine." Perfikot candidly disclosed, ntioning that the technical differences were not due to anything else, just a matter of cost.
The difference engine used in large machinery is bigger in size, and the power driving the engine is also greater, but correspondingly, the gears are also bigger.
After all, using great power to drive small gears easily damages those delicate gears.
Hence, correspondingly, Perfikot could not apply so of the precision technologies used on the Alchemy Puppet to large machinery.
Besides, it’s not cost-effective since the gears and springs used in the Alchemy Puppets are of watch-grade precision processing, and so axles are directly made from gems, making the cost and labor quite astonishing.
It’s only because this world has alchemical technology that allows convenient precision processing capabilities; otherwise, such levels of precision gears could only be made manually by watchmakers, or one could wait for technological developnt to create precision machining lathes.
As for whether delicate gears can drive large machinery? Actually, if Perfikot is willing to spend the ti, it can be done.
Furthermore, for her now, she doesn’t even need to design it herself; she only needs to drive the Jade Record to optimize, upgrade, and deduce related designs.
But this isn’t the most optimal solution for efficiency and cost, and such large machinery doesn’t need such precision parts to increase its intelligence. As long as it can understand commands and execute the corresponding operations, that’s sufficient.
After all, the Alchemy Puppet is ant to be used as a "person," while large machinery is more of a tool. "People" need to be smart enough to accurately execute commands in complex environnts, whereas machinery working in fixed environnts does not.
Weir, having been a top alchemist back in the day, surely understood this logic too.
Thus, after Perfikot gave a simple explanation, Weir expressed her understanding, but then she raised a new question: "If we were to enhance the efficiency of this machine, do you have any good ideas? Since this item is your design, only you would know how to improve it best."
Weir didn’t mind asking Perfikot for advice despite the competition; this isn’t about who is inferior to whom, it’s just that she isn’t familiar with the setup Perfikot designed.
If she were to explore by herself, she could also figure out the working principle of the difference engine and even understand the concept of chanical logic.
But doing so would take a lot of ti; why waste effort on unnecessary work when a question could solve the issue?
Perfikot didn’t mind sharing, except for not revealing the programming and instruction set to Weir, which she wouldn’t easily comprehend.
After all, she’s from over a hundred years ago, and her knowledge structure and thinking patterns have long been set. Although she continues learning new knowledge, her ability to accept new things has considerably lagged.
Moreover, as an alchemist who ascended to legendary status through magical puppet technology, she’s more accustod to her puppet-making thods rather than Perfikot’s digital programming.
However, after another round of technical exchange, Weir, having understood the working principle of the difference engine, expressed dissatisfaction with its computational speed.
The computational speed of a difference engine isn’t directly related to its size, but faster engines tend to be larger unless advanced alchemy can miniaturize the gears and components.
Moreover, its data storage is disappointing; the difference engine on the large robot has only nine storage columns, each can store only one set of numbers, equivalent to one instruction, which is insufficient for what Weir wanted to achieve.
So she proposed a new design idea: "I’ll use magical puppet technology to create computing units, then connect multiple units together, with each unit responsible for calculating one digit. This should greatly increase computational speed and efficiency."
Upon hearing this, Perfikot’s mind buzzed, as if a thunderbolt exploded in her brain.
Indeed, why was she confining herself to gears and levers?
This era certainly has nearly no applications for electricity, but that doesn’t an she can’t develop electronic computers!
She might not be able to produce chips and transistors, but can’t she at least make vacuum tubes?
And even if vacuum tubes can’t be made, as Weir suggested, creating simple computing units should be easy enough, right?
Thinking of this, Perfikot hastily asked Weir: "Can the computing units you’re making be made small enough? They don’t need to be overly complex, just capable of recognizing two signals would suffice."
"That’s simple, and making them small isn’t an issue. At my current level, I could make them about the size of a grain of wheat. Is that small enough? If you want them even smaller, you might need to lend the Philosopher’s Stone." After so thought, Weir responded based on her current skill level.
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