14 Feb
2008
14 Feb
'08
8:43 p.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
So are you saying that by the time you've tested enough components to make the
thing work, the first components tested have already started to fail (and by
implication, that early tubes would fail very quickly even when not being
actively used)?
Or just that the early tubes would fail so often that replacement would be
constant, with nothing left over for actual operational time?
Given that we're talking digital logic here, I would have expected that it's
reasonably easy to test whether a particular tube will perform in a digital
environment, just not how long it'll stay operational. Like I say though, I'm
not a tube person...
Where's the fun in that? :-) I don't think the question was asked with an
attempt to attain modern performance / reliability / ease of use / cost etc.
in mind.
But yes, we need the OP to give us a few more guidelines as to where the
boundaries are, as "1900-era materials and modern knowledge" covers way too
much ground.
cheers
Jules
Tube theory
means virtually nothing to me (except that I know that the
earliest ones weren't exactly paragons of reliability :-) - but I suspect
that the answer to "could it be done" is a yes. The end result might not give
out sane data most of the time, would probably be as big as a house, and
likely wouldn't run for more than a day or two before everyone gave up in
disgust - but I suspect it'd be *possible*
No. No. No. No.
If I were better at probabilities and statistics, I could probably
*prove* it to be impossible, or close enough to it to not matter
anymore. Take into account variations of the tubes and the time needed
to tweak out the variations, and figure in the MTBF of the devices and
the number of devices, and I think the result would be very near zero. I do not even think that the industry at the time
could even make
enough tubes to keep up with the demands for just one machine.
Maybe... interesting point (although I suppose it doesn't affect the question
of building a machine now using 1900-era components - just of whether it could
have been done back then)
That's
probably covered by the "modern knowledge" part of the aforementioned
post
If you have modern knowledge, and all that knowledge it built on, just
make an Intel Core 2.