If mana is basically magical energy, and there are mana-conductive and mana-insulating materials available...

...

those countless and seemingly unsensical dungeons filled with undead and other monsters? giant computers.

Sure, but as you optimize the designs the circuitry inevitably resolves into the shapes of ancient runes and pentagrams-in-circles and miscellaneous magical symbolism, for whatever reason.

im just here cause that OP image. great image.

Could you repeat the question?

Yayoi is cute.

You need semiconductors to make an electric computer. So you can't make a mana computer with just the materials listed.

People don't seem to appreciate how complex computers are. It's a miracle they even work at all.

If you're using it for a story element, you could take the old labrynth of shifting walls and tunnels idea and make it a gigantic magical computer, akin to how large early computers were.

That's like asking if you can build a computers with watts.

Abacus golems are a much simpler solution really.

>need
Citation needed.
The only thing that is required to make a computer are logic gates and flow that goes through these gates.
You can make a water-powered computer if you want to.

Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.

Magic Skynet.

Not really. A computer is just an arrangement of logic gates. Nano-scale transistors allow them to be impressively small for their power, but there's many ways to build computers. An automatic transmission valve body is basically just a computer that uses fluid instead of electricity.

if you can boost your intelligence with magic why do anything but loop intelligence boosters

why not just use telekinesis to fuck up someones brain/whatever instantly

why is immortality that difficult when powerful healing magic is common

why are there shitty peasants who are even worse off then real world medieval (non russian) peasants when fuckload of magic is everywhere

how do non-supernatural users ever do anything of note

ect.

because fantasy writers are hacks

>create large network of linked magical items
>so much latent magic that it creates a consciousness

There's a bunch of settings that could work for.

>ants
I read that manga, it was pretty good

You need switches to make logic gates though. Something that will allow magic to flow under one circumstance and that will not under another. If all you have is conductors and insulators it's very very difficult to make these kinds of switches.

>if you can boost your intelligence with magic why do anything but loop intelligence boosters
Because you want to actually do something.
>why not just use telekinesis to fuck up someones brain/whatever instantly
Line of sight.
>why is immortality that difficult when powerful healing magic is common
Soul bullshit and all that. When it's gone, it's gone.
>why are there shitty peasants who are even worse off then real world medieval (non russian) peasants when fuckload of magic is everywhere
They didn't win the magic lottery and segregation of classes exists.
>how do non-supernatural users ever do anything of note
By being charismatic and leading the supernatural users to whatever cause they believe in.

Has anyone built a pneumatic calculator?

I'm actually planning a game right now that had this happen in the recent past. A company calling itself Magi-Tech started to fuse magic and technology together to create magic supplies and unusual effects as one.

But then the apocalypse happened.

>Magic Skynet
"If god didn't exist, it would be necessary to create one."

What do you think gods are?
Just mana based entities/super computers created through overlapping thoughts of believers.

Underrated post.

They built something similar in London once. It was more of an economical calculator using water as an analogue for currency. They never got it to work right.

It was the Inspiration for The Glooper of Discworld.

I specified electric computers for a reason. If you want to use electric motors or dominoes to make a logic gate, that's fine. But it's no longer an electric computer.

It depends entirely on the setting in question.

I was thinking more of a 3d printed contraption. Built to show off, like those mechanical calculators that fit in the palm of your hand, tragically designed about a decade before the first electronic calculator, but possible since the first pocket watch.

it sounds like part of Hex from the Discworld books

IF the setting has mana-conductive and mana-insulating materials, then sure. That's actually a thing in my setting.

Oh God I wish that image weren't so true.

>ants
The word still gives me flashbacks, fucking antman.

Actually I just remembered that computers predate transistors. So you could figure out a way to do it otherwise.

what do mana computers do

You mean in my setting, specifically?

compute

Hex was actually made from bees.

You could make magic relays.

Modern computer architecture to make computers anything but unusably slow is very complicated.

>Something that will allow magic to flow under one circumstance and that will not under another
How about magic?

I guess if you can create arbitrarily sized AMFs along the circuit, then you could make a magic computer.

Provide basic mathemagical support and graphing capabilities to wizarding academy student at the expense of their construction being nearly monopolized by a single artificer.

Magic is actually a sentient force. It's mostly uncaring, but it DOES hate technology.

that fuel's gotta be pretty nonreactive for someone to be willing to store it in their armor's chest cavity

What a profoundly stupid thing to say.

Maybe it's like epoxy and you need to mix two separate chemicals to get the properties you want, and those chemicals come from separated compartments.

Nope. Ants in glass tubes.

It could be coolant instead of fuel. Maybe it's some sort of magi-tech that generates a lot of heat while it's in use, so you need to pump coolant to it.

>Shy girls
>Talking to anybody

Processing and short term memory were ants.

Long term storage was bees. That was a later addition.

Nice repeating digits.

Didn't it also make use of a waterwheel with sheep skulls for it's RAM?

Welp.

How fitting that hexes are found on discussion of Hex.

Yes. Also a spring with an egg-timer boings up when it's thinking hard.

Holy shit. I got a sext of 5.

And who could forget:
>+++Out of cheese! Error! Please re-install universe, divide by cucumber and restart!+++

What manga?

Boku no ants

Monster Collection

No you don't.

Boku no pico

...

but based on magic / mana this is not needed. You do not need small and good design if the energy transferance has 100% efficiency. And most systems only let large concentrations of mana generate light, not heat. So you can increase the frequency to beyond good and evil.

back in the old WW board there was a post about building computers within M:tAw, with a proof that the given spells in the core book are turing complete.

You don't even need material form if you're using magic. Just logic.

No. It had that, and it was called that, but that was analogous to a power supply.

...

I feel you would like this OP
fictionpress.com/s/3238329/88/A-Hero-s-War
it's "what would happen if you put an engineer into a standard fantasy setting" goes into alot of detail on the mechanics of magic

Come up with a magical justification for wearing diapers.

assuming mana transistors are possible, yes.

Someday you're going to be dealing with shit, wallowing in shit, or interacting with human shit. This will range from levels of nonexistent to waist deep at varying points. As a wizard you're going to be dealing with the human shit variety as they are vastly less intelligent than you are. We make you wear those diapers as a child so you could get used to the feeling of wallowing in so much shit then so you can perform at your fullest now without hesitation.

That's what you get when you put those clowns in charge.

Waves are just excitations of a field. All particles are also waves. Therefore, if there is a mana field, there are mana waves. If there are mana waves, there are mana particles.

Casting spells makes me poop myself.

No, unless you have mana semiconductors or mana powered devices that turn mana conductors inro insulators and viceversa

sure you could, but it would be highly inefficient
getting magic to actually act like pure magic instead of being expressed by a spell requires a lot of energy, and if you work on the "spell" basis you have a shitload of very dangerous overhead on every single bit of information

what you're building is a slower, more expensive and vastly more dangerous version of a mechanical computing machine

magic has many advantages but safety and consistency are not among them

Solid post fampai

then it can be trained

SCIENCE

Greebo does not look nearly as fucked up as I imagined.

>Something that will allow magic to flow under one circumstance and that will not under another
I think magic already does that, otherwise my lightning spell would hit the ground.

I'm playing FATAL, everything needs diapers, specially the magical side effects.

Nicely done friend. Enjoy your minute of fame.

Or worse.
>magic Veeky Forums

Less jew talk please.

Man, you'd fucking love Morrowind.

>this is what fat chicks actually believe

What the DM says can happen, well, it can happen. Doesn't matter what the the setting says, everything is up to the DM.

That said, just imagine a Dark Sun mana computer. Draining life from the world just to look up things on the internet.

I have found my spirit animal

How do you build a Quantum Magical Computer?

>not ias, mechas and protodeus
LaughingBarnabas.png

Bet u arent even human.

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12936417/

And

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/12939196/

Everything old is new again.