26 Nov
2007
26 Nov
'07
9:47 a.m.
On Friday 23 November 2007 22:23, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 23 Nov 2007 at 16:36, woodelf wrote:
This stirs a vague recollection of an old mechanical adding machine I once
had, the kind that had a big rectangular array of buttons instead of just
a "10-key" set of numbers. I have *no* idea how it stored a number in there,
though.
Going back even earlier, I had the occasional chance to play with some
mechanical calculators. These were about the size of an old typewriter, and
there were a couple of different sets of readouts that consisted of digits
that showed through small windows on the front of the machine. It had
a "carriage" of sorts that would shift back and forth at times, though my
fuzzy recollection isn't clear on when it did that. And when you told it to
multiply, it'd really take off! :-)
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
Could CORE be developed to just use relay
switching speeds and logic?
Zuse's mechanical memory is a marvel.
> http://www.epemag.com/zuse/part6a.htm
There are many kinds of mechanical memory. In particular, I recall
an early TTY device that used a large rotating drum with cams
embedded in the surface. One could flip a cam one way or the other
and then read them out. I'm trying to remember what sort of machine
this was used on and its application, but my memory sadly fails me.