What is the first computer?

From: William Donzelli <william_at_ans.net>
Date: Wed Jun 17 18:34:40 1998

> Agreed. You can understand an ASR33 or similar by turning it by hand and
> tripping linkages, etc. I did it years ago. Doing the same to a video
> terminal, even a simple dumb terminal, is a lot harder (Done that as well!)

I have actually done that with a chunk of one of these computers - the
turn of one gear would cause a hundred others to move.

> The other nice thing is that, with the possible exception of custom cams,
> it's generally pretty obvious what broken parts should be like. And then
> it's possible to make them without too much equipment. But a dead custom
> chip is almost impossible to figure out, and hard to reproduce.

That is very true - a stripped gear is a stripped gear is a stripped gear!

Fixing one of these mechanical computers, however, is completely different
from the familiar digital ones. In the latter, all problems (except video)
are go/no go. In the former, problems manifest themselves in the outputs
giving out-of-spec or erroneous results (except with a catasprophic
failure!).

William Donzelli
william_at_ans.net
Received on Wed Jun 17 1998 - 18:34:40 BST