What is the first computer?

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Sat Jun 20 16:23:31 1998

<Yes, relays are a lot slower than electronic devices, and yes, they may
<be less reliable. But they're not as slow as all that.

They are reliable, especially the sealed ones...saves extracting
bugs(moths) with tweezers(aka: Lt Hopper).

Speed; the problem is cascade. I've worked with relay trees of good size
and while each can do 10s of repetitions persecond tens of them in cascade
can only complete one cycle in a second. To do logic like a counter
using relays is slow even though the individual relays may be fairly
fast. Though using s stepper relay is faster than chained relays.

Allison
Received on Sat Jun 20 1998 - 16:23:31 BST