Magical computers

you mean this?
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=undead computer

One of my setting ideas has an ancient race which survived a universal reset creating a demiplane in which they stored a massive sentient AI.

In my world magic travels along and is shaped by runes, instead of wires you have long ribbons with runic symbols embroidered onto them.

I always thought the older punchcard computing and programming could be paired well with magical works. Sort of like Zork,

Great, now I'm thinking about those magic pieces of paper that you slap on the foreheads of demons in anime, except the papers are punch cards.

In my setting that I've had rolling around in my head, certain patterns set by the gods can influence the flow the magic field, producing physical phenomena. Currently, the idea of magical computing is just starting out, with big, slow machines being created in the universities and such. The problem is that these patterns aren't scalable and so size matters and its what keeps electromechanical computers seperate from magical computers. Plus, some components may have preset complex functions (like golem cores or something), making each machine have a unique function that can't really be modularly scaled up like actual computers.

The idea that I've been kicking around is a permanent programmed illusion. So you scribe your program onto a scroll or something, and then cast the illusion with "boot loader" instructions to read and execute the written code. The illusion itself is incidental to the programmable part, but obviously that's your UI.

The big disadvantage is execution speed (unless you customize a spell to give the illusion accelerated time for purely mental actions). The advantage is infinite RAM, no heat to dissipate, and access to some truly amazing interface and peripheral options. Ideally you'd want to invent an API to talk to other spells and a nonmagical (nonvolatile) high density storage medium.

It's the computer scientist's dream: even the hardware is implemented in software. Which actually is where I got the idea.

Well, I should point out that since we have Deep Rot linked, that Steve Jackson beat Veeky Forums into print with this idea in 2008. GURPS Thaumatology has an example of a strange magic item from a forgotten empire that was recovered by adventurers and passed down through the family as an heirloom.

The wizard they hire to finally identify it discovers that it's a nested series of thousands of conditional spells. Essentially, a computer, though the wizard isn't familiar with the concept. He sees nonsapient spells interacting to "think" in what he considers to be a blasphemous and inexplicable fashion.

Deep Rot was written to emulate a computer at the transistor level, but of course we need not go that far to imitate the limitations of a technology we aren't using. So what would such a computer look like?

>So what would such a computer look like?

Well, you could write computer programs in a high level language and just run them interpreted from there (no compiler required).

Peripherals:

Illusions for UI, entertainment, etc.

Some kind of operating room via Tiny Hut, Magnificent Mansion, or Demiplane.

Telekinesis, Creation, etc

Wow this board isn't even a shadow of what it was back then. Seriously nobody sees any potential in this?

Sad!

There are 3 types of mana.
MANA S
MANA R
MANA P
All magic use the 3 types of mana.
Instead of mana being a user thing, its a universe (or multiverse, omniverse if your setting is multiples universes) thing.

All spells cost more than 0 mana of each one of the 3 mana.

When you try to cast some spell the spell check and dont fail it check if the universe has enought MANA S left, if yes, the spell continue.
If the universe has enought MANA S, the amount of mana s of this spell is reduced to universe amount of mana S. If not the spell fails.
It check if the universe has enought MANA R, if yes, this amount of mana R is remove from universe, if not the spell fail and the amount of mana S you spent goes back to universe.
If you dont fail, the amount of MANA P is added to universe amount of MANA P.
The amount of time between the time you cast and the time the effect happen is based at the spell itself and the amount of MANA P the spell has.
After the effect fade out, you check the amount of MANA P of the universe and based at spell and this amount of mana P, you find the time to spell trully fade out.
The spell trully fading out means, the amount of mana P used is removed from universe amount and the amount of MANA R and MANA S is added back to universe amount.

Anyone can cast an spell as long they do EXACTLY what need to be done to cast the spell.

Mana S is storage
Mana P is processor
Mana R is ram

1d4chan.org/wiki/Deep_Rot

Just check out Discworld, they managed to create something pretty close to AI using a magic based computer, not to mention do interesting new research at the High Energy Magic building at the Unseen University.

i've thought about magic users channeling geothermal energy into crystals (creating lattice patterns of bytes), which are grouped together to form circuit boards and output into a crystal sphere graphic user interface.

the setting i imagined is basically cyber punk but with crystals and high-elves, or crystalpunk. where the high-elves cartels (corporations) control crystal technology and crystal banks (crystal server farms that process information, with a central crystal bank known as the SilverForest) and LatNet (or LaticeNetwork, basically the internet.

crystals, geothermal ducts and other sub-surface raw materials are managed by dwarves. fairies are software managers and crystalbank maintenance.

I remember some threads ago about a magic system that worked like programming
That system paired with the thinking stones could do interesting stuff, like a thinking stone can only do stuff you've programmed into it and can only hold certain amount of spells
That is an interesting idea but could be polished more, it reminds me of a similar idea I had where the magic users will have certain spells available depending if it was day or night, what environment they where and who was in their party.