Disclaimer: this is a modified cross-post of my post on the Space Exploration SE site, adapted to better fit the Worldbuilding community.

A Von Neumann Probe (VNP) is a sci-fi probe which explores the universe in a self-replicating fashion: it finds a location to recreate itself, does the necessary mining and processing to duplicate every part of itself, and then sends off the duplicate to start the cycle anew.

Suppose a society wants to create a VNP with our current level of technology. There have been real-life attempts to approach this idea (see NASA's Advanced Automation for Space Missions, and two 3D printed 3D printers named RepRap and Snappy as examples), but they all seem to have the fundamental barrier of silicon chip production. To my knowledge, producing silicon chips with a VNP is far from being achievable currently, since producing a full-scale clean room and electronics factory would take a VNP the size of cities or larger. I will assume graphene electronics technology is impractical as well, since that's still in its infancy and would probably need clean room conditions as well.

With this in mind, are there any somewhat practical alternates to silicon electronics that could be used for our fictional society's VNP? Vacuum tube technology, pneumatic instead of electric transistors, mechanical computers, something else? Emphasis on the practicality of the designs.

Disclaimer: this is a modified cross-post of my post on the Space Exploration SE site, adapted to better fit the Worldbuilding community.

A Von Neumann Probe (VNP) is a sci-fi probe which explores the universe in a self-replicating fashion: it finds a location to recreate itself, does the necessary mining and processing to duplicate every part of itself, and then sends off the duplicate to start the cycle anew.

Suppose a society wants to create a VNP with our current level of technology. There have been real-life attempts to approach this idea (see NASA's Advanced Automation for Space Missions, and two 3D printed 3D printers named RepRap and Snappy as examples), but they all seem to have the fundamental barrier of silicon chip production. To my knowledge, producing silicon chips with a VNP is far from being achievable currently, since producing a full-scale clean room and electronics factory would take a VNP the size of cities or larger. I will assume graphene electronics technology is impractical as well, since that's still in its infancy and would probably need clean room conditions as well. Without a means of duplicating its own electronics, our probe cannot meet the requirements to be a VNP: 100% self-replication.

With this in mind, are there any somewhat practical alternates to silicon electronics that could be used for our fictional society's VNP? Vacuum tube technology, pneumatic instead of electric transistors, mechanical computers, something else? Emphasis on the practicality of the designs.

Disclaimer: this is a modified cross-post of my post on the Space Exploration SE site, adapted to better fit the Worldbuilding community.

A Von Neumann Probe (VNP) is a sci-fi probe which explores the universe in a self-replicating fashion: it finds a location to recreate itself, does the necessary mining and processing to duplicate every part of itself, and then sends off the duplicate to start the cycle anew.

Suppose a society wants to create a VNP with our current level of technology. There have been real-life attempts to approach this idea (see NASA's Advanced Automation for Space Missions, RepRap, and Snappy as examples), but they all seem to have the fundamental barrier of silicon chip production. To my knowledge, producing silicon chips with a VNP is far from being achievable currently, since producing a full-scale clean room and electronics factory would take a VNP the size of cities or larger. I will assume graphene electronics technology is impractical as well, since that's still in its infancy and would probably need clean room conditions as well.

With this in mind, are there any somewhat practical alternates to silicon electronics that could be used for our fictional society's VNP? Vacuum tube technology, pneumatic instead of electric transistors, mechanical computers, something else? Emphasis on the practicality of the designs.

Disclaimer: this is a modified cross-post of my post on the Space Exploration SE site, adapted to better fit the Worldbuilding community.

A Von Neumann Probe (VNP) is a sci-fi probe which explores the universe in a self-replicating fashion: it finds a location to recreate itself, does the necessary mining and processing to duplicate every part of itself, and then sends off the duplicate to start the cycle anew.

Suppose a society wants to create a VNP with our current level of technology. There have been real-life attempts to approach this idea (see NASA's Advanced Automation for Space Missions, and two 3D printed 3D printers named RepRap and Snappy as examples), but they all seem to have the fundamental barrier of silicon chip production. To my knowledge, producing silicon chips with a VNP is far from being achievable currently, since producing a full-scale clean room and electronics factory would take a VNP the size of cities or larger. I will assume graphene electronics technology is impractical as well, since that's still in its infancy and would probably need clean room conditions as well.

With this in mind, are there any somewhat practical alternates to silicon electronics that could be used for our fictional society's VNP? Vacuum tube technology, pneumatic instead of electric transistors, mechanical computers, something else? Emphasis on the practicality of the designs.