Book Review: How to Build a Working Digital Computer

From: Doug <doug_at_blinkenlights.com>
Date: Tue Mar 2 20:55:43 1999

On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, Dave Dameron wrote:

> It was me for one who mentioned it before.

Oh, yeah. Did you tell me about this at TRW?

> The drum was a metal can with contacts to 20 or so flashlight lamps.
> Segments of the drum were covered up with tape so various lamps were lit
> as one rotated the drum. The lamps were instructions for you to switch
> the various knife switches, you rotated the drum to see the steps to
> take.

Ah, that must be what Derek meant. I didn't really look at the drum
section, so I assumed it was magnetic.

Shortly after reading this book, I went to pick up my mail. As fate would
have it, a friend from NY sent me a computer brochure. It was for an
educational computer from 1969. I swear it has the same attributes as the
computer described in this book, but in a much more polished form. I'll
scan a pic this week. It's really an amazing coincidence: same drum, same
simulated core, simular looking ALU, ....

-- Doug
Received on Tue Mar 02 1999 - 20:55:43 GMT