Blinkenlights

From: Doug <doug_at_blinkenlights.com>
Date: Sat Feb 27 02:21:54 1999

OK, I think I have a candidate for the first computer with blinkenlights.
This is from David Richie's The Computer Pioneers:

<<
As he sat in his kitchen, one November evening in 1937, [...] Stibitz went
into his workshop, took some relays salvaged from Bell Labs' junk pile,
[...] and devised a few circuits. Input consisted of strips of metal cut
from coffee cans. Output was a pair of flashlights bulbs that lit up or
stayed dark to indicate the results of binary calculations.
>>

Stibitz is generally credited with creating one of the first digital
computers. I think this date is earlier than both Zuse's Z1 (1938) and
Atanasoff's ABC (1939), so I guess blinkenlights were there from the
start!

-- Doug
Received on Sat Feb 27 1999 - 02:21:54 GMT