Blinkenlights

From: Jgzabol_at_aol.com <(Jgzabol_at_aol.com)>
Date: Sat Feb 27 07:02:46 1999

Doug wrote:

<<
 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!
>>

Now that is really thorough digging! Good find, thank you.
John G. Zabolitzky
Received on Sat Feb 27 1999 - 07:02:46 GMT