It took me a moment to correctly parse this reference to a wooden half adder. Did somebody whittle half of a venomous snake?
Gratuitous Bosom Buddies reference, from memory:
Int. Rustic Cabin
Henry Desmond (Peter Scolari)
What’re you whittling?Kip Wilson (Tom Hanks)
(holding up a branch stripped of bark)
Albino snake. You?Henry
(holding up an immaculately carved sports car)
Maserati.Kip
Big deal. No tape deck.
Anyway, the wooden half adder in question is a mechanical computer that takes in two binary digits (bits), A and B, and outputs two binary digits, C (the carry bit) and S (the sum bit).
The craftsman, Takashi, was inspired by A.K. Dewdney’s The Tinkertoy Computer and Other Machinations.
Addendum: Takashi has added a video demonstration of his wooden half adder: