William Blair wrote:
Does anyone know of a source for schematics of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer vacuum tube
logic circuitry? I've found this web page:
http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/ABC/
but there are no schematics available there. I have emailed the person at the bottom of
the web page,
If you are referring to the schematics for the ASM (Add-Subtract Mechanism),
they are readily available, although not including the values for the resistors
which determine the logic-gate functions. A scan and my re-organised versions
are accessible at:
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/ABC/asm.html
I was doing some calculations and experiments with vacuum tubes a couple of
years ago to recreate an ASM, to figure out what might work for the
logic-resistor values (not completed). It would be nice to know what the
original values were.
If you are referring to the schematics for the entire machine, I had the same
interest when I was working on writing a simulator (also on the web pages) to
confirm some aspects of the functioning of the machine. I managed to get the
simulator functioning without them, so didn't feel a dire need to get them,
although it would still be interesting to see them.
Sometime after the sim was accessible on the web, I was contacted by one of the
fellows (Charles Schorb) who had worked on the ABC reconstruction and I asked
him about schematics. His reply:
...
Schematics are a bit hard to come by. They requested that I return all my
schematics after leaving the project for 'my real job'. Contact Gary Sleege
to see if they have lightened up on this restriction.
...
but I haven't pursued it further.
but I suspect that since school is not in session, I
won't soon get a response.
(Actually, at universities, when school is not in session can be a good time to
contact people as the people are less likely to be busy with students and
teaching responsibilities, at least if they're not on vacation.)