Emulators of Classic Computers

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Thu Jan 15 17:13:39 2004

>
> > But it's not even unlikely that half a century from now our clean and
> > neat binary logic hardware will be as robust and orthogonal-seeming
> > as electron tube logic does today. In fact, I think this is just as
> > or more likely than the former scenario.
>
> And any decent electronics hacker can interface electron-tube logic to
> modern-day logic with fairly minimal effort. I expect the analogous

Exactly!.

> statement to be true 50 years from now.

I would agree. It's not as if the TTL specs are in any way hard to get (I
think I have about 10 different TTL databooks, on paper). I would be
_very_ supriesed if no record of the TTL (and 5V CMOS, 3.3V CMOS, etc)
logic levels exist in 50 years time. After all, I bought a reprint of a
1937 Sylvania valve (vacuum tube, electron tube, firebottle, glassfet,
space channel device, call it what you will) databook a year or so ago,
and I suspect people will be selling reprints of current databooks in 50
years time as historical information.

Given said TTL databook, it will not be impossible to design logic level
shifters. And once somebody's done it, the design can easily be shared...

-tony
Received on Thu Jan 15 2004 - 17:13:39 GMT