15 Oct
2007
15 Oct
'07
8:19 a.m.
Here's a very interesting 1951 paper on the construction of a complex
boolean logic unit using relays. It's contemporary with the more
better-known Kalin-Burkhart machine.
http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/archive/docs/mechanized_reasoning_screenres.pdf
This is the first time this paper has been put online. I received it
as a photocopy of the original from J B Smith's sister.
This is at screen resolution. I'll post a higher-res version later
for printing. (I had to clean up the paper considerably from the
original using Photoshop.)
If you're interested in the history of logic machines, you should also
look for machines by Alfred Smee (1851), and William Stanley Jevons
(1870)
Graham
References:
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&channel=2PSP&q=Kal…
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&q=%22mechanized+reas…
15 Oct
15 Oct
3:22 p.m.
On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:49:27 am Graham Toal wrote:
Here's a very interesting 1951 paper on the
construction of a complex
boolean logic unit using relays. It's contemporary with the more
better-known Kalin-Burkhart machine.
http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/archive/docs/mechanized_reasoning_screenres.pdf
This is the first time this paper has been put online. I received it
as a photocopy of the original from J B Smith's sister.
This is at screen resolution. I'll post a higher-res version later
for printing. (I had to clean up the paper considerably from the
original using Photoshop.)
If you're interested in the history of logic machines, you should also
look for machines by Alfred Smee (1851), and William Stanley Jevons
(1870)
Graham
References:
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&channel=2PSP&q=Kal…
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&q=%22mechanized+reas…
+McCallum+Smith
Now THIS is interesting! I love the idea of a computer that's actually
designed to compute, as opposed to playing games on or getting annoyed at.
If you have any more documents like it I'd love to hear about them. Do you
have anything about analogue computing?
Thanks,
Alexis.
3:38 p.m.
New subject: DIGITAL TA79-BF tape drive on Govliq.
16 Oct
16 Oct
10:42 a.m.
Graham Toal wrote:
Here's a very interesting 1951 paper on the construction of a complex
boolean logic unit using relays. It's contemporary with the more
better-known Kalin-Burkhart machine.
http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/archive/docs/mechanized_reasoning_screenres.pdf
This is the first time this paper has been put online. I received it
as a photocopy of the original from J B Smith's sister.
This is at screen resolution. I'll post a higher-res version later
for printing. (I had to clean up the paper considerably from the
original using Photoshop.)
If you're interested in the history of logic machines, you should also
look for machines by Alfred Smee (1851), and William Stanley Jevons
(1870)
Graham
References:
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&channel=2PSP&q=Kal…
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&q=%22mechanized+reas…
Thanks for putting that up, fits in as a contemporary of Simon as an early
logic educational instrument (and the Kalin-Burkhart refs lead through
Berkeley's Giant Brains book).
I don't think I've seen Smee mentioned before, have to go look him up; Jevons
did the mechanical 'logic piano' didn't he? I'm trying to remember the
name of
another fellow who made an electrical logic instrument ca 1900-1910. IIRC, it
was interesting in that it used dual-coil relays as gates, each coil being an
input, and making the gate construction look a little more like modern gates
than typical multi-contact relay logic.
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.
11:05 a.m.
Brent Hilpert 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.
But the logic all seems to be
for word logic problems, but not much
for what is now real computer problems like adding two numbers.
Ben.
9:22 p.m.
New subject: Possible DEC based controller on Dovebid
The first photo shows what looks like a DEC terminal, and the last photo
shows
some DEC like boards.
Bob
http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=fab11474
10:04 p.m.
New subject: Possible DEC based controller on Dovebid
On 10/17/07, Bob Rosenbloom <bobalan at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
The first photo shows what looks like a DEC terminal,
and the last photo
shows some DEC like boards.
http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=fab11474
That's a VT52 (or something similar in the same shell) in the first
picture, and, as you say, some DEC boards in the last. The auction
text mentions a PDP-11, but there's not enough detail to tell what it
might be. Given the terminal era and appearance of the boards, I'd
place it in the late 1970s, suggesting that the PDP-11 might be an
11/04 or 11/34.
-ethan
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6 comments
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participants (6)
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bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
bobalan＠sbcglobal.net -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
gtoal＠gtoal.com -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
thrashbarg＠kaput.homeunix.org