21 Oct
2007
21 Oct
'07
2:43 p.m.
On 10/22/07, Mark Tapley <mtapley at swri.edu> wrote:
At 15:42 -0500 10/16/07, Brent wrote:
>Also reminds me of the Kosmos (from Germany) "computer"/(switching)-logic
>trainer from the late-60s/early-70s I received as a kid. I think Radio Shack
>marketed it over here for a while, later in the 70s.
Yes. I had the Radio-Shack-badged one.
...and you have just reminded me of the name
(see subject). I
had one too. <google> ... ah.
http://oldcomputermuseum.com/logix_kosmos.html
That was the first one I had - the overlays inside were, IIRC, printed
tissue paper.
Power supply, 10 bulbs across the top, 10
slides, each slide
opened or closed 5 sets of contacts (functioning as a 5PDT switch),
and a pushbutton. Each contact had 3 holes, as did the power supply
and the lights. By placing jumper wires, you enabled "gates" to
create the logic. You'd slide the slides to generate the input, then
press the pushbutton to provide current. The lights would illuminate
to generate the output. There were paper fold-ups to place inside the
light housing so that the output could be pictographic, and to slide
into a holder to label the slides.
Yep. And the whole thing arrived as bagged fiddly-bits - I remember
taking more than an hour to assemble.
Mine died of corrosion on the contacts, and
was (regrettably)
trashed, I'm pretty sure.
I remember the contacts weren't great on the best of days. I think my
step-mother threw mine out when she decided my room was too messy.
:-(
My step-brother had the later Radio-Shack model - the lights were down
inside the body of the unit, with flat, plastic printed overlay strips
that mounted flush to the face of the unit, and rather than small
holes with brass contacts inside the switches, it had external springs
like the 150-in-one project kits of the day. It was also sold
pre-assembled, IIRC.
I did most of the projects in mine, but the one I remember best was
the goat/cabbage/fox puzzle. There were graphics on the 3 left-most
and 3 right-most bulb spots for the puzzle elements, and a light to
signify that you had an error condition (i.e. - the fox ate the goat
or the goat ate the cabbage). You flipped the switches to migrate the
elements back and forth across the "water", and you might have pressed
the button to see what "got et" on that pass, if anything.
My only real complaint with it as a teaching tool was that even though
I did all the projects, there was no abstraction of the underlying
concepts presented. I knew what logic gates were, but at that age,
wasn't able to extrapolate on my own how multi-pole switches related
to logic gates. I don't recall there being any schematics printed for
the projects, either; something that might have helped illustrate what
was going on under the hood.
It was fun to play with, but I don't think I learned that much from
it, unfortunately. I think the N-in-one electronic kits were better
as teaching toys.
-ethan