23 Jan
2010
23 Jan
'10
6:47 p.m.
Brent Hilpert wrote:
Funny how the adder circuit keeps coming up, one of
those perennial topics in
computing. I too worked on optimising it.
(http://people.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/simon/imp.html#ALU). Later I saw Zuse's
design and noted that I had -almost- arrived at the same design. The number of
contacts and basic circuit were identical, but I missed one final optimisation
of flipping some contacts in the sum circuit so the relays required would be
4-pole& 4-pole rather than 5& 3 (the former tending to be a little more
practical in the real world, of course).
What I found more amazing, was his mechanical memory/relays in the first
proto-type machines.
http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~zuse/Konrad_Zuse/en/rechner_z1.html