On Wed, 17 Jun 1998, William Donzelli wrote:
> > It reads a set of instructions off the punch card, the gears or what have
> > you interprets the pattern, and finally displays the output on the fabric.
> > Sounds like a computer, in the broadest sense. The purists would say that
> > it's not a computer unless it computes. I'm sure you could do math on it
> > with a few simple modifications though.
>
> The line is always grey...
>
> > Didn't that have something to do with RADAR? Or was it cryptography?
>
> No, not radar.
>
> Radar, incidently, was just about the first use of digital electonics.
> Although there was no computation at the digital level*, vacuum tube
> flip-flops and counters were used in the timing circuits, as well in IFF
> codes (The NRL even tried out a pre-1940 IFF box that used a real binary
> word for the codes, with the hope that encryption would follow. It turned
> out to just be a lab rat, however, and most of the war years saw the
> horrible British MkIII system in use.).
>
> *The mechanical fire control computers, on the other hand, are truely
> awesome devices. They would accept a bunch of real time input data (some
> from the radars, some from the ships' gyros, some from the gun pointers
> (sailors), and even internal data like how many times the gun was
> fired (wear on the barrels)) - and output a bunch of data to set up the
> shot. It worked well - incredibly well - 20 mile hits on the first shot
> were not uncommon. It took YEARS before an electronic computer could rival
> them.
Ah yes! The (then) ubiquitous Mark 1A (One Able) fire control computer.
Probably the only greater marvel were the fire controlmen who were able
to keep them in operation when repairs were necessary.
- don
> Tons of metal, but built like a Swiss watch.
Precisely! Pun intended.
> William Donzelli
> william_at_ans.net
>
>
donm_at_cts.com
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Received on Wed Jun 17 1998 - 14:39:36 BST