early non-US personal computers

From: Hans B Pufal <hansp_at_digiweb.com>
Date: Thu Oct 12 05:14:59 2000

Doug Salot wrote:
 
> I'm looking for foreign brothers of machines like the Altair
> (microprocessor), Kenbak-1 (discrete logic), Minivac (clocked relays),
> GENIAC (rotary switches), etc. I'm also looking for pointers to old (say,
> 1940-1970) electronic hobbyist mags outside of the US.

On the last point (and related to the first) Wireless World is a British
magazine published since 1910. I have bound volume 73 January 1967 to
February 1968 which states "Fifty-seventh year of publication". It still
survives as "Electronics World" which seems to be available in the US.

This particular volume is of interest to me because of the series of
articles starting in the August 1967 issue describing the "Wireless
World Digital Computer".

Implemented in transistors the "computer" was and 8-bit word serial
machine with 3
"memory" locations. No programming as such, you set up an instruction on
a set of switches.

A team of students two years older than I built this at the school I
attended and I had the pleasure of looking after for a year or two.

We did some work on setting up a sequencing system to run programs via
strwoger switches but never really got anytthing to work reliably.

Two other magazines published in the UK were Practical Wireless and
Practical Electronics.

Happy memories....

  -- Hans B Pufal
 
>
> Thanks,
> Doug
Received on Thu Oct 12 2000 - 05:14:59 BST