Games That Teach the Fundamentals of Computer Operation

One who wishes to give a group of laymen a feeling for the way we computer engineers can coax sophisticated information-handling behavior from an organization of simple physical elements can provide a striking on-the-spot example by training his laymen to simulate various kinds of simple elements and by organizing them into a network whose behavior is obviously more sophisticated than that of any element. Each individual watches the up-down hand position of one or two others, and adjusts his own hand position according to a response task which is equivalent to that of an AND, OR, NOT, or flip-flop element¿although task assignments are made in such a way that the participants don´t hear a single esoteric word, nor realize that they might be doing ``logic.´´ Counters, shift registers, and adders may be organized and operated in a way which proves very entertaining to participants and on-lookers, and yet which provides them with very realistic basic concepts about how a computer might work.