I Made a Graphing Calculator with Minecraft Redstone!

I know I say this every video, but this is without a doubt the most challenging and complicated machine I've ever made. It required multiple components working together to solve equations and plot over 10,000 different point values.

Corner to Pixel Graphing Algorithm Circuit designed by @JonDaFun
Optimization work done by @Sloimay

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Want to get more involved in the logical redstone community?

0:00 Showcase
3:29 Explanation

Music (in order):

[mattbatwings]

Some FAQ since this vid is blowing up haha:


- You're only plotting one point at a time? Why can't you just solve the equation and go line by line?


Because many equations, such as the ellipse, are not functions, and cannot be "solved". They yield multiple outputs per one input, and fail the "vertical line test" which you may remember from high school.


- Why not make multiple plotters so that it can do more than one pixel calculation in parallel?


This may speed up the process slightly, but not by very much. Minecraft is single-threaded, and the mod speeds up the game as much as possible. So if you had 2 plotters, it would graph twice as fast but with twice the lag, and therefore cancelling out.


- Can you use pipelining to make this faster?


Yes, absolutely. I never did pipelining with redstone at the time of this build, so I didn't think to do it- or at least, I didn't think it would make enough of a difference to be worth it. Looking back on this, you could increase the speed by order of magnitudes, as it's possible to create 5hz multipliers.


- Method 3 isn't perfect, what about polynomials that are completely non-negative? Wouldn't that be considered all positive by Method 3 and hence no sign change is detected?


Yes, you're absolutely correct. This is a rare case that I didn't realize, and it's so cool that some very smart commenters noticed this.

The equation (y - 5x)^2 = 0 is supposed to look like the line y = 5x, but under Method 3, it graphs absolutely nothing as all the z values of z = (y - 5x)^2 are nonnegative.

I still have SO much love for method 3, because only a very small set of equations have this property, but great catch nonetheless! I'm not sure how you would fix it, or if it's even possible in an easy way.

[The_Horizon]

imagine trying to test it and having to wait hours just to see if something works

[JeSus-hlzj]

- No one:
- This guy: "Hi I'm a Senior Redstone Developer"

[MaxPicAxe]

You: "This was a crazy project"
Also you: "This took just over a month"

HOW DID YOU DO IT SO FAST???

[Lightilin]

As someone who is typically intimidated by coding, computer science, and redstone, this video was an absolute pleasure to watch. Your thorough explanations are much appreciated; for the first time in forever, I feel like I actually understand how one of these things works! Thank you so much, and amazing job!

[zh]

"its thick, but thin in some parts, and still has holes in it" sounds perfect to me

[xvnexus]

3:14 the rotated ellipse took around 29 hours to graph according to the timelapse speeds of this and the previous graph and the fact that the previous graph took 16 hours

EDIT: i watched the video more and apparently he actually did say the time it took

[ryanretrogamer]

The technical explanation was awesome! I could not figure out how to plot points without holes in the graph. I was pretty disappointed not finding the solution I’ve been searching for in your video until you said: “Now, I’ve been lying to you.”
That is a very elegant solution!
My calculator won’t be as efficient as yours, but it’s been fun learning how to build calculator myself!
I’m preparing to build my version 4 calculator!

[defeatSpace]

Calc teacher: "Stop playing Minecraft in class!"

mattbatwings: "I'm using my calculator."

Calc teacher: "Class was over 90 minutes ago..."

[Lampe]

5:35 "That's how it works on Paper, but let's see how it runs on Spigot."
- mattbatwings in some parallel universe

[danielrhouck]

I just yesterday saw someone mentioning the “do it at the corners” Method 3 for a real computer graphics thing. It looks like you’ve independently invented marching squares.

(I don’t mean that dismissively even though I can’t find a way to word it that makes that clear. It’s really cool and I don’t think I would have figured it out without that video walking me through it)

[nanamacapagal]

That is INSANE. Holy shit, I didn't know that was even possible without command blocks.

[charles]

"Turing Complete" sounds really interesting when someone first explains it to you, but you can't really appreciate it until someone does stuff like this....

[sayochikun]

thanks for adding the explanation part! I'm not interested in making redstone builds but being able to do such complex calculations in such limited conditions always amazes me.

[Boscawinks]

This is so mind-blowing! I'm in awe. Great work on both the calculator and the explanation

[VRX]

Hey I just recently finished a 4 bit calculator in Minecraft and seeing this absolute masterpiece of technology in Minecraft is not only insane but beautiful in it's own way. This may have been an older video but I'm still so impressed by your ways of pushing Minecraft to it's limits. You really are an artist and a madman at the same time. Can't wait to see what you do next!

[ethannoble]

Amazing! Are you a Computer Science student or a prospective one? I am just starting to get into the actual Computer Science of the field learning about low level languages and how logic gates literally do everything in a computer. I am fascinated by this! It is literally just binary and logic gates that do everything in a computer, and there is no exception for redstone! Took me two years of college to realize that.

[flyingbicycles]

I love your method for the lines. Much more elegant than what actual graphing calculators do, which is use a floating-point step value. Imagine implementing FP math in Minecraft! 30 hours would be fast!

[Simon-fusd]

just wow!! Really liked how you explained the evolution of methods with the code example, the 3rd method is really good.

[RepeatSalt]

This man so smart, he understands everything Mumbo says in his videos