Electronic Devices - Bits and Storage

Blip · 2013-06-01 13:00:11

I recently decided to move away from building "real" houses for the moment and focus on delving into the deep and complex electronics of the game. Much of this utilized a device that can "store" a bit of data, 0 or 1. This device is simple to build; you arrange pressure pads, VTS's, and VTIS's in this pattern (thanks for tipping me off on this, zed!):

zed wrote:

+-$
|+s
|+V++
+--v+I
$: power
s: switch
+,|,-: wiring
V: voltage inverted switch
v: voltage triggered switch
I: indicator floor

Note: this upcoming section may get a bit confusing.

This results in a "sticking" power supply coming to the light. While these could simply be used to make sticky buttons out of non-sticky ones, I had a cooler use for them in mind. With this, I build a press counter on a button. Every time the button is pressed or unpressed, another light down the line is activated: http://castlefortify.com/c/37af9d1

This utilizes the bit storage circuits to act as a secondary power supply that passes power along down the line, allowing each subsequent press of the button to supply power to the top of the next powered bit circuit. This continues until all of bits have been tripped, resulting in all the indicator light being on. Of course, it wouldn't make a good trap at that point, as all it did was count presses. I wanted to build something where players would store bits of information in bit storage circuits, using only one or two buttons, and use it for later.

At that point I was inspired by hard drives: I decided to use the press counter as a "write head", to control which bit of a set of multiple would be written to. A second button would allow that player to write to this bit; alternatively, a different form of input could be used: http://castlefortify.com/c/3c714a4
Power from the press counter controls voltage triggered switches, routing power from the lower button to a different bit, namely the one below the closest non-lit light on the press counter. These now store five bits of data, which could wired directly into a combination lock. Again, this might be too easy to crack and relatively hard to defend well, as players could see what the final combination is and, using that, deduce how to input those bits into the system. So, instead of using the stored information in those bits immediately, I devised a system to read them out one by one at a later time, a "read head" if you will: http://castlefortify.com/c/bf54cac

The read head is a press counter that functions to let power from each bit out, as opposed to letting power for each bit in. As power goes down the line of the press counter, it activates voltage and inverted switches, which output power from each bit one by one, reading them out onto the sole indicator light at every press of the read button. Now, the stored information is in a position where it can be accessed later, perhaps allowing it affect a trap that contains read head activators, turning parts of the trap on and off based of prior encoding by the thief.

Has anybody else built any cool electronics they want to show off? Post them here!

bey bey · 2013-06-01 13:40:48

Hehe, I robbed that house without realising what it was supposed to be. Crazy stuff, that. I'm at the sticky switches point.

One thing I realised, though: With the more complex electronics, the map soon becomes too small to accomodate an 8-thick safe, the electronics and family protection.

Last edited by bey bey (2013-06-01 13:41:42)

zed · 2013-06-01 15:35:24

Interesting stuff!

Here's the map I've been waiting all week for someone to crack - today someone
finally did! Congratulations and thanks to whoever that was. (I then tried to
rework it into something more interesting, but died during testing...)

http://castlefortify.com/c/e70285c

It's based around a 3-bit binary counter - that's what's going on along the south wall.

Let me draw out that basic component (a "half adder") in ascii (same notation
as before, with # for a wire bridge):

             +-+-+
pulse in -> -#+v+#-  -> pulse out ("carry")
power in -> +#v+V+
            +v-+

So when a pulse comes in to the left, the state (i.e. whether or not the top
row is powered) flips, and if it was on a pulse comes out on the right.
Chaining them together, you get a counter.

If anyone finds a more compact design, I'd be interested! I had a much neater
design in v5, but it relied on the "bug" that wire bridges triggered switches.

Returning to that map: the stuff in the middle produces a pulse of length
three, and the circuitry in the top left listens for such a pulse and turns
off the trapdoors if it hears it. I'm sure there's plenty of unexplored
potential for that technique.

Blip · 2013-06-01 19:19:11

That's a pretty useful piece of wiring, zed. I think I just robbed your next house; five-bit binary encoding is nice, but I just read the final switches, right to left: 10101, or 21 times the button has to be depressed. No amount of wiring can protect you from a legible combination.
I might use that 50000$ to build a secure read/write lock.

jasonrohrer · 2013-06-01 20:03:22

My goodness!

zed · 2013-06-02 07:58:55

Blip wrote:

That's a pretty useful piece of wiring, zed. I think I just robbed your next house; five-bit binary encoding is nice[...]

That wasn't mine, that was built by the person who robbed my house! Seems they stole my ideas along with my money...

Blip · 2013-06-02 09:57:22

The thing that I loved about your original house, zed, was that you were using pulses to conduct power across the electric floors without turning them on, something that took me some time to figure out how to do. I had tried robbing your house before, but the chihuahuas threw me off. I'm terrible with dog-based electronics, and I also misread the concrete walls as steel. At the time, I didn't realize you could mouse over blueprint tiles for info.
Also I finished my secure read-write lock. It should keep people out, though I don't have too much money in there now. I had to leave it unfinished last night, as I had something in real life to do (but who needs real friends when you can rob people?) and somebody robbed my out-in-the-open vault. This morning I got some more money, and finished it. It is 9-thick, but, at the moment, there's no family protection. They all died during my open-wiring experimentation, when I had no defenses at all. Though, considering I have no room for them, they might be better off dead: no save-states for you robbers!

The Castle Doctrine Forums

#1 2013-06-01 13:00:11

Electronic Devices - Bits and Storage

#2 2013-06-01 13:40:48

Re: Electronic Devices - Bits and Storage

#3 2013-06-01 15:35:24

Re: Electronic Devices - Bits and Storage

#4 2013-06-01 19:19:11

Re: Electronic Devices - Bits and Storage

#5 2013-06-01 20:03:22

Re: Electronic Devices - Bits and Storage

#6 2013-06-02 07:58:55

Re: Electronic Devices - Bits and Storage

#7 2013-06-02 09:57:22

Re: Electronic Devices - Bits and Storage

Board footer