roons are a kit for building mechanical circuits and computers. Think of:
- Redstone circuits in Minecraft
- Factorio
- Cellular automata and the Game of Life
- “Lego, but for building computers”
how it works
We arrange tiles called roons on a disk. When we turn a handle, the bars of the disk move up and down.
Each roon‘s upper surface is contoured to guide marbles in a particular way. Some behave as logic gates — the fundamental units of computing. Others contain state, letting us read and write data. We can combine these basic elements to build computer components like processors, memory, and other nifty devices.
This binary adder takes two numbers and adds them together. It’s currently calculating 14+7, or 01110+00111 in binary. The bottom row outputs the answer 10101, the binary representation of 21.
Like with a regular computer, the true power comes when we start combining devices together. For example, our adder might save its result into a piece of memory. Another device might read this memory later, and use it in a calculation or decision — and so on, and so on. Chaining devices together like this is what lets us climb from simple 1s and 0s into actual computer components.
modules
Modules into the drive grid to extend your devices’ capabilities — like plugging in a monitor or keyboard to a regular computer.
For example, the Buffer module allows you to store, load, and present binary data in a more compact and convenient format. They can be chained together to create dense storage, and used to perform lots of other nifty tricks like bit shifts (a way of manipulating binary data) and unit tests.
how do I get roons?
Visit whom
mart and drop a roll of cash on the countertop. You’ll get your roons.