9 Apr
2002
9 Apr
'02
4:50 p.m.
From: Sellam Ismail <foo(a)siconic.com>
On Tue, 9 Apr 2002, Jonathan Engdahl wrote:
> Haus des Lehrers. They did, after all, have Pong. Later, I did find the
> http://www.blinkenlights.com/ website, and laughed at myself when I
found
what the other
Simon was.
I've already received two emails from people that want this classic
computing treasure, even in pieces.
Are you talking about the 1950s Simon "electronic brain"?
Some people are silly and lazy. If they would do the research, they find that the Simon was a construction project. So
it's not like you're
going to find a mass produced, commercially sold variant. You're only
likely, if you're incredibly lucky, to find some hobbyists rats nest of
wires and relays.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
Sellam, why do you insist on labeling people with terms such as "silly" and
"lazy?"
Have you considering taking the easy way and suggesting that they might be
mistaken?
Also, do you still want this Amstrad 3" drive or shall I repost it to the
list? It's been several months . . .
Glen
0/0
9 Apr
9 Apr
10:57 a.m.
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Glen Goodwin wrote:
Because I find it silly and lazy that people can't take two seconds to do
a web search and find the information they're looking for.
Are you
talking about the 1950s Simon "electronic brain"?
Some people are silly and lazy. If they would do the research, they
would
find that the Simon was a construction project.
So it's not like you're
going to find a mass produced, commercially sold variant. You're only
likely, if you're incredibly lucky, to find some hobbyists rats nest of
wires and relays.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
Sellam, why do you insist on labeling people with terms such as "silly" and
"lazy?" Have you considering taking the easy way and
suggesting that they might be
mistaken?
No.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
10 Apr
10 Apr
9:40 a.m.
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3:18 a.m.
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Tony Duell wrote:
Well, FWIW, I thought 'Simon' refered to the electronic game. And because
I thought I knew what it refered to, I didn't think I needed to do any
web searches for it.
OK, I was wrong. This does not make me silly or lazy, though..
If you followed (i.e. actually read) the thread then you knew we were
talking about the relay-based Simon computer. So to those who did
actually read the thread and then still bugged John Keys for information
about it without first running a web search which would have yielded
several good hits, I find you to be silly and lazy. All others are
pardoned.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Sellam, why do you insist on labeling people with
terms such as "silly" and
"lazy?"
Because I find it silly and lazy that people can't take two seconds to do
a web search and find the information they're looking for. 
12:41 p.m.
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:
If you followed (i.e. actually read) the thread then
you knew we were
talking about the relay-based Simon computer. So to those who did
actually read the thread and then still bugged John Keys for information
about it without first running a web search which would have yielded
several good hits, I find you to be silly and lazy. All others are
pardoned.
I lost track of the discussion, since it seemed that there were people
talking about BOTH.
I thought that I had a copy of Berkeley's book, but it turns out that what
I have is his "Giant Brains".
I will not contest that I am lazy.
or crazy.
But probably NOT silly.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
7:59 a.m.
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
I lost track of the discussion, since it seemed that
there were people
talking about BOTH.
I thought that I had a copy of Berkeley's book, but it turns out that what
I have is his "Giant Brains".
That's a great book, but it's not the one with the Simon description (it
was his next book).
I will not contest that I am lazy.
or crazy.
But probably NOT silly.
I concede I am not only both silly and lazy, but somewhat disturbed (and
somewhat disturbing as well).
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
4:18 p.m.
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:
"Giant Brains" (1949) is where Berkeley first describes the idea of a
simple computer called Simon, but he didn't implement the idea till 1950.
See Berkeley's Simon FAQ here:
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/berkeley/simonfaq.html
-- Doug
I have is his
"Giant Brains".
That's a great book, but it's not the one with the Simon description (it
was his next book). 
11 Apr
11 Apr
3:03 a.m.
Just in the interest of getting a good sence of the
problem and it's solution, what is the minimum
number of gates necessary to implement a stored
program computer? I guess the instruction set
would be something like (IF(x=0),JMP,ADD,SUB,MOV)
Was Simon attempting to be this?
John A.
with a few relays kicking around.
4:42 a.m.
New subject: Does Anyone Have A (smallest gate count computer)
The lowest gate count computer I ever built had two 1 bit accumulators, and
four instructions: AND, NAND, OR, and STORE. It also had a program counter,
a program store, and a data store. The instruction word had a two bit opcode
and a six bit data address. It really was a sort of PLC (programmable logic
controller). I remember the program store was something like eight 2102
RAMs. The rest was maybe a dozen 7400 series TTL chips. I didn't finish the
data store section, but I was able to demonstrate its operation by toggling
in data values by hand as I stepped through the program.
The details are a bit fuzzy. I think it had two 1 bit accumulators, one for
the min-term and one for the sum. AND would load a bit from the data store
and "and" it to the minterm. NAND would do the same except invert the data
first. OR would "or" the minterm into the sum. STORE would save the OR of
the two accumulators to a data location, and preset the minterm accumulator
to 1 and the sum accumulator to 0.
It had no flow control. The PC was simply a 10 bit counter that cycled the
entire program endlessly.
--
Jonathan Engdahl???????????????? Rockwell Automation
Principal Research Engineer????? 1 Allen-Bradley Drive
Advanced Technology????????????? Mayfield Heights, OH 44124, USA
Mayfield Heights Labs??????????? jrengdahl(a)safeaccess.com 440-646-7326
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
[mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of John Allain
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 11:04 AM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Does Anyone Have A
Just in the interest of getting a good sence of the
problem and it's solution, what is the minimum
number of gates necessary to implement a stored
program computer? I guess the instruction set
would be something like (IF(x=0),JMP,ADD,SUB,MOV)
Was Simon attempting to be this?
John A.
with a few relays kicking around.
5:25 a.m.
On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, John Allain wrote:
Just in the interest of getting a good sence of the
problem and it's solution, what is the minimum
number of gates necessary to implement a stored
program computer? I guess the instruction set
would be something like (IF(x=0),JMP,ADD,SUB,MOV)
That's an interesting question. ADD and SUB are pretty high-level
concepts (compared to a minimalist implementation). I guess the minimal
"complete" machine would be a Turing machine.
Was Simon attempting to be this?
It was a complete computer (including paper tape reader, blinkenlights,
toggles, the works). Initially it was a 2-bit machine, and later both the
instruction set and word size were expanded. There was a project for a
drum memory peripheral, but I don't know if it was ever completed. So, it
wasn't an attempt at minimalism as much as it was an attempt to bring
computers to the average guy at a time when they were room-filling "Giant
Brains" accessible to only a few.
Cheers,
Doug
5:16 p.m.
Well I am lazy and maybe silly at times and started it all by asking Sellam
for the blinkenlites url, but the Simon electronic game red herring was
dicombobulating. Reminded me of some IBM PS/2 <>Playstation 2 threads
on comp.sys.ibm.ps2.
Lawrence
Well, FWIW, I thought 'Simon' refered to the electronic game. And because
I thought I knew what it refered to, I didn't think I needed to do any
web searches for it.
OK, I was wrong. This does not make me silly or lazy, though..
-tony
lgwalker(a)mts.net
bigwalk_ca(a)yahoo.com
Sellam, why do you insist on labeling people with
terms such as "silly" and
"lazy?"
Because I find it silly and lazy that people can't take two seconds to do a
web search and find the information they're looking for. 
12:30 a.m.
On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Glen Goodwin wrote:
Or, have you considered someone might have actually wanted a Simon
toy/game for its parts or to tinker with?
-Toth
From: Sellam
Ismail <foo(a)siconic.com>
Some people are silly and lazy. If they would do the research, they
would find that the Simon was a construction project. So it's not
like you're going to find a mass produced, commercially sold variant.
You're only likely, if you're incredibly lucky, to find some
hobbyists rats nest of wires and relays.
Sellam, why do you insist on labeling people with terms such as
"silly" and "lazy?"
Have you considering taking the easy way and suggesting that they
might be mistaken?
8069
days inactive
8071
days old
13 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
acme_ent＠bellsouth.net -
allain＠panix.com -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
doug＠blinkenlights.com -
fernande＠internet1.net -
foo＠siconic.com -
jrengdahl＠safeaccess.com -
lgwalker＠mts.net -
red＠bears.org -
tothwolf＠concentric.net