Although Radio Shack had color computers, we don’t think they had it in mind. [Pepepépepe] There are some coloring book pages and simple rules that allow you to simulate logic circuits using crayons. The downloadable ‘zine’ contains handwritten instructions and several examples.
Remember, it is a computer in the same way that old logic kits were computers in the 1960’s. They really show the digital logic circuit. To make the “computer” work, you choose two colors, one for a square and the other for a circle. You color the path until you reach a “nory”. Nari, which suspiciously looks like a slingshot with the eye, has a special rule. If you have the color of the circle on both sides of the nory, then the output of the nory will be the square color. Otherwise, the color that comes out is the color of the circle.
Apparently, this rule creates a NOR gate where the color of the circle is zero and the color of the square is one. As the colors propagate down the path, you can draw display elements, including 7-segment displays, and make them work.
There are more rules for learning and you can build a computer that also has a game pad Don’t be naughty. Is this real? Of course not. But it can be a fun role for digital logic for a smart kid, and who knows where it might end up?
It would be fun to recreate something like an old genetic “computer”. If you prefer a paper computer, you have cardiac (you can even mimic that paper computer in an FPGA).