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And here comes pneumatic computing! Another proof that you don’t need electronics to apply the principles of digital computing, but this time with some plausible practical use. This could allow various chemical or biological lab experiments where electronics couldn’t be used.

Each pneumatic valve is operated by changing the air pressure in a small chamber below the air channel, separated from the circuit by a flexible impermeable membrane. When the lower chamber is filled with air the membrane pushes upwards and closes the valve, preventing the binary signal flowing across one of the processor’s junctions.

Or, it could be used to compute 5 decimals of Pi every time I sneeze, that would be cool.

Source: New Scientist (link)

Thanks to Ghostie (link)