Hm, I came up with this idea independently, 5 < years < 10 ago, after reading the first third of <i>Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software</i>.<p>Neat!<p>I just figured that you could redesign common ICs so that they had a new wire akin to the "carry" bit. I called it the 'done' wire, and I figured you could just tie it to the CLK of the next IC. Ya know? So 'doneness' would propagate across the surface of the motherboard (or SoC) in different ways depending on the operation it was performing. Rather than the CLK signal, which is broadcast to all points...<p>(I know that my idea is half baked and my description is worse. I'm glad I found this PDF!)<p>I knew the big advantage would be power savings. I called the idea 'slow computing', and I envisioned an 8-bit style machine that would run on solar or a hand crank and be able to pause mid calculation until enough power was available... Just like a old capacitor-based flash camera will be able to flash more frequently when you have fresh batteries in it.<p>You'd just wire the power system up with the logic. Suppose an adder fires a "done" at some other IC. Now, put your power system inline, like MiTM... When it gets the "done", it charges that capacitor (a very small one? :) ) and only when enough power is available does it propagate the "done". ...Maybe the "done" powers the next IC. I dunno.<p>As I said, half baked. Glad to find out that I'm not the only one that dreamed of 'clockless', though!