The big picture - page 3

ZOZ objects fall into these three general categories: sensor objects, motor objects, and computational objects.

(1) sensor objects:         convert physical universe energy to data

    Sensor objects input energy from the physical universe and output some numeric
    measure of it to the ZOZ data stream. Sensors can determine properties of the
    physical universe like temperature, weight, distance, color, electromagnetic
    field strength, etc. 

(2) motor objects:          convert data to physical universe energy

    Motor objects receive numbers from the ZOZ data stream and output some sort of
    energy into the physical universe, proportional to or based on the numbers received.
    These objects include motors, pumps, valves, radio transmitters, light bulbs,
    anything that moves or radiates energy.

(3) computational objects:  convert data to data

    Computational objects have no interaction with the physical universe at all,
    but input data directly from the ZOZ data stream, modify it in some way,
    and output the modified "answer" back to the ZOZ data stream. These objects
    can do arithmetic like squaring a number or multiplying a stream of numbers,
    or finding the cosine of an angle.


The ZOZ itself doesn't sense, motivate, or compute. It just moves data from ZOZ object to ZOZ object. It is these objects then, activated by the request for data or the receipt of data, that do the sensing, motivating and computing.