Relay computers - OR functionality

From: Dwight K. Elvey <dwight.elvey_at_amd.com>
Date: Tue Sep 28 14:07:36 2004

>From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf_at_siconic.com>
---snip---
>
>None, I just felt like pointing out that whoever decided to use the plus
>sign for OR was most likely insane.

Hi
 Actually from a mathematical sense, it does make sense. The
OR operation can be mapped to the plus operation and the
AND operation can be mapped to the multiply operation. One
finds that when doing this, many mathematical rules correlate
nicely. That is why it was done. Rules like associative and
communicative make sense. It wasn't just wild insane mad men.
 When one understands the reasoning fully, one can except
the choices made. It is just that in your schooling, you
were never exposed to much Boolean algebra. That is too bad
because so much of what we do with computers requires a
level of understanding of how it works.
Dwight
Received on Tue Sep 28 2004 - 14:07:36 BST