Emulators of Classic Computers

From: R. D. Davis <rdd_at_rddavis.org>
Date: Tue Jan 20 09:48:31 2004

Quothe Tom Jennings, from writings of Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 11:29:08PM -0800:
> On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 18:32, ben franchuk wrote:
>
> But with TUBE computers you just fix the broken part.:)

Oh really? :-) When was the last time that you saw someone pop open a
tube and replace or repair an open filament, repair a short between
elements or restore the vacuum in a gassy tube, etc., and then put the
tube back into use?

> I have a new design (yes you read right) for a tube computer, probably
> 75 envelopes, on my website. 20 bits, serial arith, drum memory but I
> later realized that switched-capacitor (aka DRAM) was actually
> historically acceptable since one was made (NBS "test" computer; the
> diodes were too expensive in 1952 but it was basically just a DRAM).

Neat! Slow, but most interesting.

> Somehow, I can't find the money to make it. But I'm serious enough,
> there's an assembler and simulator there (wps.com/projects).

What appears to be the most expensive aspect of the project thus far?

-- 
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & 
rdd_at_rddavis.org  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
Received on Tue Jan 20 2004 - 09:48:31 GMT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:36:47 BST