Starting from Scratch (was Re: OT: Modern college educa

From: Ethan Dicks <erd_at_infinet.com>
Date: Fri Oct 23 08:31:59 1998

>
> > Hey! I though about this for a grad project in History - build a computer
> > using Roman technology (metallurgy, etc., since the Romans didn't have
> > electricity).
>
> Just what do you want ? The Z1 was _complete_ echanical and
> was build by hand on a kitchen table - and used anything
> also known from modern computers, including binary floating
> point.

While I didn't know about Zuse at the time, I was thinking about Babbage
and the (now disproved) notion that pre-20th-C. technology wasn't up to
the task of building computers, even if they knew how to do it. Not
being a mechanical engineer, my thoughts drifted over to an electronic
computer rather than mechanical.

> >> What about creating a Game ?
> >> Of course all Graphics has to be ASCII :)
>
> Stop, my question was not about greating a game on a PDP.
> The intention was to build a computer game where building
> a PDP (or something like that) is the goal ... Such a basic
> build up an economy game like Civilisation etc. But instead
> of geting welthier all the time you have to build up a PDP as
> soon as possible

Ah! I misunderstood. That's a cool idea. There is an open source
version of Civilization floating around. Perhaps that could be
adapted, not that we couldn't steal a start from somewhere else...

        My Lord Hammurabi, I beg to report to you that this year we
        have produced 1,000 transistors and 400 rallods of copper
        wire.

        How much copper do you want smelt this year?

-ethan
Received on Fri Oct 23 1998 - 08:31:59 BST