NaN Gates and Flip FLOPS

A new kind of computer architecture that's more elegant than 1s and 0s, being based directly on Mathematics.
Note: Everything in here is real (IEEE-754), but the target is computer scientists and the troll level is set to ULTRA.
Source code and stuff: tom7.org/nand/

[@dean1100110]

I feel as if I just walked into a Uni lecture 3 hours in and I'm the janitor

[@dean1100110]

@DejaVoodooDoll fair enough soulds like a good video series

[@millermiller3439]

@@dean1100110 I'm super late but what did he comment?

[@dean1100110]

@@millermiller3439 Fuck knows cant remember hahaha

[@thomashanson3476]

Dean lol it's been two years do you understand what's going on now, I don't lol

[@dean1100110]

@@thomashanson3476 I still dont, been moping the flor ever since

[@ThePyrosirys]

I started experiencing physical pain when I realised you were going to build it for real.

[@luhem7]

First video of his I've watched. Every new section of the video made me more and more incredulous. You could build a computer using my final level of incredulity.

[@regexrationalist346]

I read this comment ahead of time but I was _not_ prepared

[@Physhi]

He's going to make Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine.

[@badenbaden1372]

what are you talking about him building it was awsome

[@andrewdunbar828]

At that point I already had a wonderfully open mind, but then I think I felt something fall out.

[@aloisio7975]

me: tries to calculate (0/0)*root(-1) computer: NaNi

[@Neimonster]

Mork: Nanu nanu

[@riflemanm16a2]

This is the only time that joke has made me laugh because it was cleverly done. Good jerb.

[@naushikha]

hahahahhaaaaa

[@otesunki]

NaN*i=Na- oh...

[@gajiodea]

Nani???

[@HomeofLawboy]

"150 billion percent speed down, which is pretty good" lmao

[@VintageToiletsRock]

You know it's bad when it's a speed DOWN!

[@nicholasfinch4087]

I want to try and run internet explorer on it.

[@otesunki]

@@nicholasfinch4087 010 percent speed down.

[@ABusFullaJewz]

Me solving basic problems in my first year programming class

[@johndododoe1411]

So running backwards at 1.49 million times normal speed?

[@ABusFullaJewz]

"3D printing is the perfect match for the Nandi 1000 because it is super slow and it just barely works." I feel that

[@ZeroKelvin440]

The existential horror that that poor Raspberry Pi must have felt when connected to this beautiful abomination is just...NaN.

[@hovant6666]

I like to think it would gasp audibly

[@excitableboy7031]

Cool beans. I'm going to go burn my computer science degree now.

[@zloidooraque0]

yep, ive got a box of matches and im searching mine already

[@TheAgamemnon911]

I thought I had reached the peak when I watched a guy hold a Powerpoint presentation about how he built a Turing machine in Powerpoint. MAN was I wrong.

[@nunyabiznasty8914]

Don't you mean.... "NaN was I wrong?" :D

[@kjl3080]

Thanks for the idea. If PowerPoint supports conditional logic, then it’s possible

[@derAtze]

@@kjl3080 I've made a slot machine in Excel

[@ts4gv]

yep. welcome to suckerpinch. tom7 is the 🐐

[@official-obama]

@@ts4gv he explained the monty hall problem to men that called her a goat?

[@McSeb1]

I find it amazing as every 10 months or so you post a video in which you use very complex math to create something that is far less useful than the last thing you created. Looking forward to see how you'll top this.

[@tom7]

This was actualy real math, not complex math.

[@Notarget1337]

suckerpinch complex in terms of difficulty not complex numbers... Wait, did I just got *woosh*?

[@albork9983]

all real math is complex (but without much imagination)

[@Vextrove]

@@Notarget1337 wOaH gUyS He MiSsEd ThE jOkE sO i TyPe R/wOoOsH aNd ThAt MeAnS iM fUnNy

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

10 months, McSeb? Try a year, from April 1 to April 1!

[@nesurame]

There's something really charming about about this hand-drawn user interface

[@MouseGoat]

its not hand drawn, hes just running windows 10

[@kjl3080]

I love it honestly

[@cashewABCD]

I had to show my people how scrolling worked down to the slider position. Lol

[@ionrael]

I want a desktop environment like that, where you manually draw and delete the interface

[@psychopathmedia]

it takes as long to "load" as 95/98 did too which is comfy and nostalgic

[@Hugobros3]

"Not -1/12 or something weird like that"

[@Grantallica]

Numberphile reference?

[@rayredondo8160]

@@Grantallica Ramanujan reference more like

[@y__h]

Too many Numberphile and you will start dreaming numbers while riding Ramanujan's Taxicab.

[@KanjoosLahookvinhaakvinhookvin]

"LE NUMBERPHILE REFERENCE xD" No, *actual mathematics* reference (Love Numberphile though)

[@Thecommet]

Numberphile's video on -1/12 was wrong though. The sum of all positive integers diverges. See 3b1b's video on Riemann Zeta function or Mathologer for an in depth explanation

[@6infinity8]

The fact that he moves the drawn mouse pointer to close the window

[@HelloKittyFanMan.]

It... what? What about it? What's the rest of your sentence?

[@6infinity8]

@@HelloKittyFanMan. That was it, it's up to you to figure out what goes next.

[@otesunki]

@@6infinity8 Is so -satisfying- -intuitive- -proper- -akward- -PROMOS- -intresting- Idk

[@want-diversecontent3887]

@@HelloKittyFanMan. Mushroom soup

[@liamdonegan9042]

@@HelloKittyFanMan. "The fact that he" is a proper noun, so it is a complete sentence

[@monke5100]

I think this is mathematically the most pointless experiment in the history of the world. Great job!

[@famicom_guy]

Nah, there are a lot of points here. After all, this is based on the floating-POINT numbers

[@monad_tcp]

that's the originaL purpose of computing ! "... and you have this black box and you know, you press run and it goes and it gets hot, but nothing comes out" (Simon Peyton Jones on Haskell usefulness without a single side-effect)

[@gogokowai]

I feel like this video single handedly sets back research into trinary computing by at least 10 years.

[@pseudotasuki]

Your use of common currencies for scale is very helpful, thank you.

[@scottmanley]

The NaNovirus has escaped my kerbal universe.

[@seanboland4671]

The only solution is to run KSP on the NaNdy 1000 and end the cycle

[@_.l4n3]

Scott NaNley!! Nice to see you here NaN!!

[@calebsherman886]

Oh, hello

[@ENCHANTMEN_]

Man, that takes me back NaN years ago when that series was uploaded... O H N O

[@teslainvestah5003]

between YOU Scott Manley (space stuff) and now Jan Misali (human language stuff), this guy is attracting all of my favorite youtubers from across industries! It's actually trippy, I never see you anywhere unless its the comments of Tim Dodd's livestreams.

[@phillipcooper7996]

I have never been so simultaneously impressed and upset with someone at the same time. Even the title is a work of evil genius.

[@rose52152]

I just want to say you're my favorite youtuber. As a computer science student, I'm motivated to be the best I can be so that one day I can make something as ridiculous as this. Please continue making this great content. With love, Me

[@tom7]

Joseph G thanks! With over 100 youtubers, this is high praise (:

[@SwervingLemon]

Don't know how this ended up in my recommended videos three years after publishing but you're my new favorite channel. The pure waste of energy and time is amazing. The whole channel is like academic Dadaism.

[@PaperakuZ]

I am really confused on when I subscribed to you, but I dont regret

[@NoodleIncidental]

For me it was the "star wars in alphabetical order" and/or "AI learning to play NES games", if that helps

[@Patchnote2.0]

I don't remember when even though it's been a while but I never regret it once I get over my confusion of what's in my sub feed.

[@jangxx]

Probably because of his AI which was designed to learn any NES game

[@SeanCMonahan]

I subscribed when I saw his "Reverse Emulating the NES" video kzbin.info/www/bejne/l6OciIWteM6GqJI

[@kgarrison343]

This is actual wizardry, but like most wizardry it looks like madness and only satisfies the wizard who created it

[@ramlover33]

"this is just the one-dimensional one" _shows a grid_

[@ToasterWithFur]

C++: "no you cant do boolean arethmetics on floats!" Suckerpinch: "haha nan go brrrrrrr"

[@Tynach]

C++ is a terrible language for you to choose that statement for, because C++ has no problems with doing boolean arithmetic on floats. Sure, you might have to typecast a pointer to the float to act as a pointer to an integer, but that all boils down to directly doing boolean arithmetic on floats once you compile it.

[@fabricatorzayac]

@@Tynach Evil floating point bit hack

[@Tynach]

@@fabricatorzayac Precisely! Though that was C, and while anyone familiar with C++ knows that it's basically just C with a few things changed and a bunch of stuff added on top, many people who Aren't familiar with it might assume that C allows you to do things that C++ doesn't, since it's older and considered 'lower level'.

[@warmCabin]

As a Belesian-Bermudan, I found your scale comparisons to be extremely intuitive!

[@SJrad]

Redstoners: “I know some of these words”

[@oshkiv4684]

Flip flops are what brought me here

[@Syndogon]

Stop

[@samborton6613]

HAHAH I LOVE THIS COMMENT YES

[@SuperWaffleTime]

redstone engineers > computer scientists

[@redpepper74]

@@SuperWaffleTime redstone engineers ⊆ computer scientists

[@jphanson]

This kind of abuse really turns me on

[@fingerprince3737]

I could scarcely believe your reference to the great scholar V. V. Vargomax, his paper on Mario Man Poly-nominals is one of the great masterworks of the age.

[@staudinga]

"i.e. ...e.e. the floating point numbers" Oh, you! ^^

[@sharofiddinoroqov3368]

Саломкаердан сиз

[@BravoCharleses]

I don't know what art is, but this is art. It's goddamn beautiful.

[@briimawler6637]

I just realized you built the FPU completely out of NAND gates, and your basic architectural unit is a NaN. That's clever. I'm on my third viewing and still finding jokes.

[@flumpyhumpy]

"On a Belizean two-dollar note for scale" LOL

[@henryambrose8607]

What about the Bermuda quarter?

[@sk8rdman]

I'm envious of the motivation it must take to put such extraordinary amounts of effort into these incredibly interesting if "useless" projects. I'm glad there are people like you in the world.

[@RobertMilesAI]

2:32 ...and now I'm singing the batman theme tune

[@SimGunther]

That reminds me of www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat

[@cookiecan10]

Do you reckon this thing is going to become sentient and will try take over the world?

[@InTimeTraveller]

@@cookiecan10 if THAT thing EVER manages to become sentient AND overtake us, then we pretty much deserve whatever punishment awaits us.

[@ifcoltransg2]

Why am I not surprised to find you here?

[@DrJigglebones]

The best part is that, in the end, it's *still* just binary logic anyways. Also your 3d printer isn't set to print quite hot enough. Pump it up about 5-10 degrees F and it should print better.

[@SnigelSnigelson]

Ahh I get the joke. At 9:00 you can see he wrote -NaN=NaN, but of course no two NaNs are equal.

[@Double-Negative]

that = sign means equivalent. they act the same, even if NAN!=NAN

[@DeeSnow97]

Two NaNs aren't equal. Take your sister and your girlfriend for example. Neither of them are numbers, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

[@BIBIwood]

@@Double-Negative Well now I want to know what is the factorial of NaN.

[@danpowell806]

@@BIBIwood NaN! = NaN, since N! is defined as 1!=1, N!=N(N-1)!, giving ! a domain of positive integers, and NaN is not a positive integer.

[@henryambrose8607]

@@danpowell806 so what you're saying is that NaN! = NaN != NaN?

[@tropic4]

This is very good. Educational, funny, and well produced. The future of computing is bright.

[@gloverelaxis]

This channel is suuuuch a treasure

[@hadis93]

we should build a base1 processor.

[@hadis93]

all according to keikaku

[@rayredondo8160]

I mean, you can theoretically do unary (which isn't technically base 1), and it would likely be more practical than this.

[@PopeGoliath]

@@rayredondo8160 I'm curious what Base 1 you are envisioning. As far as I am aware, Base 1 means one symbol, which I can only imagine as unary. Its even in the name, bi- being swapped for un-. Is there another way?

[@rayredondo8160]

@@PopeGoliath Base 1 doesn't actually work, because you need more than one symbol for unary: One for counting, and some way to stop, which would be a 0 per say. Hence, you need two symbols at least to make anything meaningful.

[@PopeGoliath]

@@rayredondo8160 using fixed length instructions might be enough. The processor would listen for an established length of time, and count up the number of pulses that came through on that clock cycle. You don't need an ending symbol if the processor already knows when to stop.

[@Fopenplop]

I love this video because almost all of computing history has been about trying to find ways to express increasingly complex concepts with increasingly concise and efficient tools and tom7 just stands athwart that history and blows raspberries at it

[@Poldovico]

I have found my new favourite English word in "athwart"

[@diablo.the.cheater]

@@Poldovico Define athwart

[@Poldovico]

@@diablo.the.cheater THANK YOU! Thanks to your comment, I found this conversation and the word again! Also I no longer remember wtf "athwart" means, but I'll look it up again and this time I'll write it down somwhere. Just a blank canvas hung on my wall with the word "athwart". EDIT: a•thwart (ə thwôrt′), adv. 1. from side to side; crosswise. 2. [Nautical] at right angles to the fore-and-aft line; across. broadside to the wind because of equal and opposite pressures of wind and tide:a ship riding athwart. 3. perversely; awry; wrongly. prep. 4. from side to side of; across. 5. [Nautical] across the direction or course of. in opposition to; 6. contrary to.

[@VADemon]

"Thing disabled in your browser: Javascript" I love you already

[@jchillerup]

Good luck with that, MPEG! 😂😂😂

[@cellularautomaton.]

wait what why did you call a youtuber mpreg

[@julius4858]

When you don’t know if it’s April fools or amazing

[@pandurendradjaja8994]

I'm pretty sure this is real. SIGBOVIK just happens to be on April 1.

[@MuradBeybalaev]

Or both.

[@zrobotics]

@@pandurendradjaja8994 And that's not intentional? Have you read any of the papers?

[@Zebo12345678]

I almost forgot! It's April! It's time for my annual piece of technologically minded garbage! But for real, it's incredible that you are able to learn so much about these things... It takes a real genius to parody such complex mechanics in these ways. I absolutely adore your videos. They make April 1st a fantastic holiday.

[@ThePharphis]

When this channel uploads it is the highlight of my year. I'm always amazed at the ideas since I now have a basic understanding of computer science, and impressed by all the jokes and presentation

[@Vvardenfell_Outlander]

Thank you, Tom. It's always a long wait but you never fail to amaze and amuse. Cheers.

[@MxMxffin]

I love how philosophy and computer science make love in your videos.

[@JTCF]

At first I misread NaN as nand and I thought this is going to be one of those "mindblowing" videos about how computers are all just nand gates...

[@khalnetherfields7263]

this is the only time ive been this excited about math, your constant jokes on numbers are so funny i havent heard anything this funny since i started understanding pratchett

[@lobsterfork]

Watching this video three years and ago and watching it again after 3 years of my CMSC degree made this video about 150 billion times more illuminating and enjoyable.

[@darkreaper300]

this strangely reminded me of little big planet. I understood little in this video but from what I could piece with the magic of nan and logic gates software can emulate hardware and hardware can be hardwired to do one task. I'm guessing this can also relate to reverse emulation?

[@MeriaDuck]

11:15 I think you may mean an anti-accelerator :D Computer scientist by education, software dev by trade. Loved this video, insta-subbed! 18:39 that is an impressive anti-acceleration! In total, this is an incredibly long tedious cool project for just a select few who will admire the beauty of it, many kudos your perseverance! I loved every minute of it!

[@benjaminbrady2385]

This was an amazing video as always Tom! I absolutely love diving into insanity whenever you upload

[@NethanielShade]

I don’t remember subscribing, but I found this on accident and saw that I already was. All I can say is this is one of my favorite videos on the internet.

[@andriypredmyrskyy7791]

Oh man it's that time of year again

[@Endelin]

When anyone asks about my sense of humor I just send them this video now. Thank you for this masterpiece!

[@cerebraxis607]

I'm so glad I found your channel man. I don't even have a PC right now, but I went to college to be a Micro-computer support specialist, so I love the lingo nonetheless.

[@xatnu]

I love everything about this video.

[@Huntracony]

I'm too tired to find something interesting to say, so I'll just say that I loved the video.

[@andrewdunbar828]

Other videos may blow my mind, but this one turns it inside out in all three dimensions.

[@LegendBegins]

You're the kind of person that keeps me up at night. Keep up the good work.

[@colohan]

I'm curious about your UI. It is almost as if it is implemented in an interpreted language over a network in a browser gatewayed via SSL to a simulated cloud meta-environment. Is that how you did it?

[@frqstbite1001]

this was all buzz words, and i cant tell if it was on purpose

[@justinliu7788]

TLS better

[@asdfasdf-dd9lk]

>NaN Gate I hate this, but I really want to see more. AAAAAA

[@Yenrabbit]

Absolutely fantastic. I stumbled on your videos today through Hackaday and they've made my week, such wonderful absurd pieces of art. Thank you for sharing these with the world :)

[@psychopathmedia]

i never get tired of this video

[@Gunbudder]

i love your videos. they are a global improvement of the concept of a white paper. maybe in the future, all academics will make detailed, interesting videos instead of white papers, and they will be called Tom7's. "Hey, did you see the new Tom7 on rocket belts for moving through free fall conditions?"

[@manonthedollar]

I spent all day trying to figure out ncurses with python and feeling proud of my progress, and you go and do this.

[@tom7]

I often spend all day trying to get other people's software to work!

[@eideticex]

I'm finding this a bit extra funny having actually abused Inf, -Inf and NaN in early attempts at GPGPU stuff. Had a whole set of matrices with most being 4x4 that represented common sequences of vector ops to 2x2 ones that represented logic gates using those values. The intent of the 2x2 being to do both branches of where you needed an if-else, feed the logic result into a lerp to pick which branch's result to use further. Took while for proper hardware support for branching in shaders so everyone had weird ways to approximate it.

[@ytkatz]

Completely enthralled when you "scrolled" the window down. Comedic genius!

[@Alebergantini]

Hey, Tom VII, I really enjoy your videos. Would you create some more of them, please?

[@tom7]

Thank you! :) I have some stuff in the works and I'm glad people are eager to see, because it can be a grind!

[@Guyflyer12]

"Nearly Full-Screen Photo Viewer 7.0" LOL

[@thogameskanaal]

I love watching this stuff. I wad waiting for the moment you would blow my mind with what your awesome mini computer can do, but it turns out it's slower than software. Still really awesome!

[@I0NE007]

I love that I have JUST enough understanding to follow along with the videos you make, leaving me as the "Hmm, yes, I concur with your decisions. Makes sense, IFF* eccentric." So I end up feeling like I'm smart / getting-smarter, but as soon as the video ends, one breath later, I think "Wait, what the hell did I just watch? I have no idea what happened." And yet I always cannot wait for the next project. *Not typo, just another (pedestrian) math joke.

[@danny_does_stuff]

"3D printing is the perfect match for the Nandy1000 because it's super slow and it just barely works " 😆

[@vanderkarl3927]

Welcome to the future, where inefficiency is novel and we're still as silly as ever.

[@tomlamarre1362]

Holy fuck I never comment on videos but your discovery of e ^ (i * pi) + 1 ^ (NaN * Inf) = 0 might be the most important arithmetic identity ever discovered.

[@brazni]

This was really fun, thank you for a good video Tom

[@PaulBrauner]

You outdid yourself on that one :) It's beautiful. It's the slowsort of CPUs.

[@SlimThrull]

"Although NaN is two different numbers we can't tell them apart." Leave to computer geeks to completely break math.

[@no1unorightnow]

Your videos are absolutely amazing.

[@asteleus2252]

This is my new favorite channel, just found you today

[@jeremymetzler72]

I can see you finally upgraded to windows 10

[@MouseGoat]

*ben forced to

[@Snowyy201]

6:18 You forgot to draw the scrolling

[@xymaryai8283]

I use that STM32F3 to run 3 PID loops with complex filters to feed a -500 to 500 output to another STM32F1 that turns that signal into a PWM 3-phase AC wave to spin 4 motors with propellers to keep a drone in the air and yet this is a more impressive feat to me

[@RobertRichard13]

love the artstyle, good work dude

[@AdamGaskins]

this is ART. this is the perfect combination of so smart and yet so dumb, it rivals the likes of shakespeare and freud. I experienced the FULL range of emotions while watching this video and I will never be able to explain any of them to my friends. Thank you tom7. Thank you tom7.

[@danflurry]

I knew some of those words.

[@StannyObelisk]

I love the way you visualised this.

[@lawrencejob]

It was at 5:40 I finally realised where you were going with this and literally gasped in awe 😂 I clearly found the KZbin channel for me

[@qwpz]

During the video: Did he do it?!? Did he do it?! At the end: yes, he did! :D

[@GnuReligion]

Would be interesting to make a CPU where the internal representation of binary integers is based on Karnaugh counting. That is, you flip only 1 bit for an INC/DEC operation. Less flipping, less heat, easier TTL for arithmetic ops.

[@johndododoe1411]

So Gray code? Why not prime based arithmetic for large whole numbers?

[@GnuReligion]

@@johndododoe1411 Thanks for dropping "Gray Code" ... first I have heard of it. Have fantasized this form of binary representation would simplify integer arithmetic with kv-maps. Sigh, it is impossible to have a new idea. Maybe some magical quantum computer will represent numbers as composite primes? Will make a study of the usefulness of Gray Code.

[@FranzBiscuit]

Well that was an entertaining (if impractical) digression. The mathematical reduction itself is incredibly fascinating. Building logic gates from floating point numbers? Ingenious!

[@404Anymouse]

This is absolutely brilliant in every aspect.

[@Finnnicus]

Dear tom7, How can I make you make more videos? Regards Finnnicus

[@Koupip]

"hello everyone today im going to weld a computer togheter and instead of using only 0 and 1 ill also add a 2 and make it a "maybe" let's see how the computer reacts to having free will !"

[@marioizthebest]

Still picture at 12:06 had me dying with laughter! I was watching this at work, and I work on PCBs, so seeing the solder all over the place was very unexpected for me. Gr8 video m8!

[@iippari7]

This has made me feel a mix of emotions I have never felt before: hilarity, awe, and rage. I'm lost for words.

[@onelazynoob15]

Okay, so it's a NAND gate made out of NAND gates, but at some level you're still representing some NAND bits as ones and zeros.

[@MouseGoat]

well Ones Zeros are just what we have decided to call the 2 symbols representing power or no power XD

[@imalebowski]

I thought this was a great start but by using an STM32 aren't you just emulating NAND gates in chip firmware? I think to take this to the next (or even previous) level you should try to build one with 74xx logic chips. Sufficiently optimised you could see some serious slow downs. Failing that an FPGA woulld save on soldering but might have the undesirable effect of being a lot quicker.

[@johndododoe1411]

Why not standalone FPU chips as used in mainframe designs? I haven't encountered any, but imagine something similar to the Cypress ALU chips .

[@donnell760]

I'm so glad that Notch tweeted this

[@pindakaas42]

This is your most sickening video yet. I am looking forward to the next. Love your stuff. Still sometimes listen to escape Cod^^

[@Mozartenhimer]

This man's IQ is NaN.