It's a little known historical fact that the first computer ever
built was constructed entirely of sheep. Yes, that's right, sheep.
This computer was designed and built by the great computer
pioneer Sir Baasil Lambswool, whilst he was working at Bletchley
Park during World War II, for the purpose of decrypting German
intelligence. The first BAAsil Computer, as it was commonly known,
was constructed from a herd of 1024 Scottish Blackface Sheep.
Chosen for their distinctive “BAA” and hardy constitution, the
Scottish Blackface was the ideal breed for Sir Baasil's
breakthrough design.
The BAAsil computer was based on the distinctive psychology of
the domesticated sheep. A domestic sheep will remain silent when
isolated from external stimuli, but will always “BAA” when it hears
another sheep do the same. For the first BAAsil computer, the 1024
Blackface sheep were carefully arranged in 64 rows of 16 sheep
apiece. Each sheep was outfitted with blinders and a pair of
headphones, so that it would not “BAA” in response to external
stimuli. Each sheep was also outfitted with a specially designed
microphone, whose output would be wired to the headphones of a
sheep in the next row. When a sheep in the first row was stimulated
to “BAA”, usually by a swift kick in the posterior, the “BAA” would
propagate forward through the rows of sheep in a manner specified
by the wiring of the microphones. The sheep in each row represented
a 16 digit binary number, with those stimulated to “BAA”
corresponding to 1's and those remaining silent corresponding to
0's. Complex arithmetic could be carried out on these numbers, by
careful arrangement of the microphone wiring, and the result could
be determined by the “BAA”s of the last row of sheep.
The revolutionary BAAsil computer was much faster and more
reliable than any mechanical design that had previously been
attempted. A special strain of male Shropshire sheep was developed,
who would "BAA" incessantly once stimulated. These Shropshires were
used to store data between BAAsil computer runs, the earliest known
implementation of RAM memory. The size of these computers grew
quickly, due to the complexity of the German ciphers, culminating
in the 1,048,576 sheep BAAllosus, used to crack the infamous Lorenz
Cipher. The BAAsil design did have its drawbacks however. The
amount of sheep manure produced by BAAllosus was tremendous,
leading to the introduction of many bugs into the computer code,
mainly horseflies. Technicians were busy 24 hours a day cleaning
this debris from the mighty racks of sheep, but the problem
persisted.
In October of 1943 BAAllosus deciphered its last transmission.
Mechanical computers had finally surpassed the BAAsil machines. Sir
Baasil was despondent when the mighty racks of sheep were
dismantled. He did not have any interest in mechanical computers;
his innovations had always been inspired by his inordinate fondness
for sheep. He left Bletchley Park soon thereafter and retired to
his Scottish manor, surrounded by the sheep he loved so well.
This cache has been placed in honor of Sir Baasil Lambswool and
his pioneering work in sheep-based computing.
The coordinates for the final cache can be found at the location
listed above, although you may not recognize them. The following
characters will help guide you to the cache, even though they
currently obscure your destination.
11100 01000 10111 00111 00001 10110 11010 00000 01101 10000 01000 00011
01001 00011 01110 00110 11001 11100 10000 10100 01010 01101 01001 00111
The final cache is a micro, with a logsheet and pencil.
Very sneaky those little sheep,
Endlessly scheming while you sleep.
Rotten caches, so hard to find,
Not if you recognize the sign!
Are you ready to test your wits?
Mystery caches can give you fits.
November 22, 2006
The cache has been relocated, due to repeated muggling at the prior
location. As a result, the puzzle has been updated to reflect the
new coordinates. If you began working on this cache prior to the
relocation please use the updated information above.