In our most recent short The Turing Problem, we spend a fair amount of time talking about Alan Turing's “universal machine.” It was wholly imaginary: a contraption comprised of an infinitely long strip of tape, a little nubbin that reads and writes numbers on the tape, and a set of instructions. (Hypothetically: “if 1 is present move to the left and write another 1.” Something like that.) Those three ingredients were the nascent seeds of the modern computer. Real computers. With real working parts. A thought made metal.

Well, after our centennial celebration of Turing ran, an observant listener named “Steve” (thank you Steve) sent us to the website of a REAL Turing Machine – not computer born out of Turing's initial idea, but an actual physical manifestation of the whole tape-stylus-instructions formula. A total madman named Mike Davey actually built one of these things. Here's a video of it in action (and thank you to Mike Davey for such an fitting tribute to Turing’s work):