3 Feb
2007
3 Feb
'07
9:07 a.m.
Hi
The one I'm looking for was made at a similar time but about
a year later was made by Diehl and sold here in the US by
SCM. It was also transistors and it used two delay lines.
It booted from a metal tape with two rows of holes. I assume
clock and data.
It had a connector that was suppose to be able to read punch
cards. It could store a program of about 60 steps.
I used one of these years ago but I don't recall if it had
conditional flow. I think most people would consider conditional
flow to be the defining line between a calculator and a
computer. At least from the users point of view.
No one would dispute that the guts of these calculators were
computers.
Dwight
From: Scott Austin <us21090 at yahoo.com>
I like the looks of the Olivetti Underwood Programma 101. It even had two
blinky lights: green (solid=ready, blinking=busy) and red (error)
http://www.silab.it/frox/p101/boxbig.gif
If I recall correctly it was the first computer(*) I programmed. Back in
'72-73, while in Jr. High (btw, not "Middle School").
Several interesting things about the P101:
Introduced in 1965 (same year as PDP-8).
No ICs; all discrete components. The boards were placed component side to
component side, designed with one board's components fitting in the spaces
between the components of the other board.
Programs were stored on magnetic cards, which Olivetti received patents for
(HP had to pay about $900K in royalties for the technology use in the
HP9100)
Its approximate 240 bytes of memory used acoustic delay line technology.
Scott Austin
(*) Computer? Programmable Calculator? I'll let someone else debate about
this.
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