A little story:
Seeing the tinkertoy computer reminds me of the mechanical "Computer" I got
for Christmas when I was about 7 years old (1961..ish). It was a long long
time ago and my memory could be a little distorted but, as I recall:
It was made primarily of plastic and was about a foot long, 6 inches high,
and 6 inches deep. This "toy" was built in horizontal layers or "planes"
where each plane was one bit in the computer. The planes could slide either
to the right or left to represent the logic states. If the plane was in the
leftmost position, it represented a "0". If the plane was in the rightmost
position, it represented a "1". I believe there were about 4 planes total.
There was a "flag" (literally a flag) attached to the left end of each
plane that provided the output. As the machine was cycled, the flags would
raise and lower with the change in states.
Along the rear of the computer there were a series of vertical wires that
pushed the planes either to the right or to the left. These wires were the
logic "gates" that drove the computer. As I recall there were about 8 of
the wires (gates) in total.
There were small projections from the rear of each plane that interacted
with the wires (gates). To program the computer you placed small sections
of a plastic soda straw, about 1" long, on some of the projections. The
straws provided the input for each of the gates. If a straw was on one of
the projections, it would interact with the wire (logical 1). If there was
no straw on the projection, the wire would not touch the projection
(logical 0).
To operate the computer, the user would move a selected plane from one
state to another. Any straws attached to the projections on that plane
would push against the wires (gates) which in turn would push against the
other planes in the machine. Some of the planes would change states, some
would not.
For each cycle of the machine, the user had to program in the next
instruction. This meant moving around the straws on the back of the
machine. Once the next instruction was loaded, the plane was slid back the
other way. I never thought about it before but, this thing actually got two
instructions per clock cycle.
Max clock speed was about .01 CPS :-)
The manual had detailed instructions for playing TIC-TAC-TOE and it
actually worked. Unfortunately, it did not provide enough other examples
so, I could never figure out how to make my own programs :-(
I'm still fascinated by mechanical computers!
Steve Robertson - QA Team Leader <steverob_at_hotoffice.com>
> > So, where is the gag ? Just don't forget, the Z1 was entirely
> > mechanical, to be powered by a crank (if necercary - of course they
> > prefered th electric motor :).
>
> Gag? Mechanical computers are serious stuff, Hans. Like Danny Hillis'
> tinker-toy tic-tic-toe machine:
> http://www.yowza.com/classiccmp/toy/tinkertoy.jpg
>
> ObOT: BTW, does anybody know approximately when tit-tat-toe got renamed
> tic-tac-toe? Or is a regional thing?
Don't our "Queen's English" friends (uk and au) call it "naughts and
crosses"?
Received on Mon Jan 11 1999 - 15:30:20 GMT
