Control Unit is broken

[NinjaKyat]

Hi!

Disclaimer: I am assuming that this is a bug, but I may be wrong. If that is the case - please correct me (it's kind of hard to find out how it should work, as most people don't really know what it is).

I've tried using the Control Unit but is seems to be a bit wonky. Once you examine the beast, you get a handy block of information. But there are some discrepancies. Here's what I've found:

• It says that you can use one of 8 inputs, yet when you wire the beast you get only 1-7 to choose from. (It should be 0-7)
  The same goes for outputs - once you try wiring something out of the Control Unit you don't have a choice of what output you are using - you only get the default input
  The two commands I failed to understand are IEN and OEN. They seem to be auxiliary registers. If so, do they serve any purpose (or are they just simple extra slots for holding information?) This could be clarified in the information thingy that pops up when examining.

Overall this seems like a really fun contraption, but I just wish it would work.

Cheers!

[AngriestIBM]

It says that you can use one of 8 inputs, yet when you wire the beast you get only 1-7 to choose from. (It should be 0-7)

Input 0 is the complement of RR.

The same goes for outputs - once you try wiring something out of the Control Unit you don't have a choice of what output you are using - you only get the default input

This is just how the mechanics system works. The output takes the form "PIN:VALUE" (like "2:1"), so you can filter that with OR gates (I think it was OR gates).

The two commands I failed to understand are IEN and OEN. They seem to be auxiliary registers. If so, do they serve any purpose (or are they just simple extra slots for holding information?)

IEN and OEN are Input ENable and Output ENable. The inputs are ANDed with IEN (So all inputs will read as zero if IEN is zero) and outputs only pass if OEN is true. I think this includes the internal memory, too.

This could be clarified in the information thingy that pops up when examining.

Ok.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MC14500B

Thank you for your interest in esoteric spaceman nerd object.

[NinjaKyat]

Thanks for the info! Much appreciated.

I should probably post this as a suggestion thread, but since the darker side of mechanics is mostly unexplored by many, I'll post this here - there does not seem to be an easy way of converting 4 binary digits to 1 hex digit. It's possible with the use of quite a bunch of components, or repeating the output as many times as the number to a selection component and then setting it back to 0, but there should be a way of easily converting from a string of four binary digits to one hex digit. Like a new component, or an improved older one (which would allow to check for several input possibilities and send different outputs accordingly) Since many station systems use hex code, it would be kind of useful.

Again, I might have totally missed some component. Feel free to ridicule me if that is the case.

[Dabir]

I wouldn't call it EASY, but you could use DWAINE's eval command to do it.

[Huff H Law]

Well Dabir said it's fixed and I trust him!