19 Feb
2004
19 Feb
'04
8:18 a.m.
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something nice and
power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory status lights :-)
Sorry, brain randomly churning over here :-)
cheers
Jules
19 Feb
19 Feb
8:43 a.m.
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
Form? Contacts? terminal type?
I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something nice and
power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory status lights :-)
Yes: Let's postulate that your bucket is populated with a Generous
Quantity of 5V 6PDT relays with sockets. Look up the schematics /
articles for the Simon Relay Computer from (I think: others will please
correct me) a mid-50s issue of "Popular Electronics", or "Electronics
Illustrated", or maybe even "Better Homes and Electromechanical Brains",
or some such periodical... anyway these relays would make a dandy Simon,
or two, or perhaps a Simon with a Relay Floating Point Processor....
If you use sockets and a PCB layout program like Eagle or ExpressPC -
you could even eliminate most of the tedious wiring - depends on just how
'authentic' you wanted to get.
Cheers
John
9:15 a.m.
On Thu, 2004-02-19 at 23:43, John Lawson wrote:
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
D'oh, I put that in and then managed to obviously slice it out before I
hit send :/
Majority of them are just DPDT types, with a few even just SPDT. Not, I
suspect, enough poles to do anything serious with. They're all
PCB-mounting miniture types (honking great things with open contacts
would be nice, but I wouldn't have the space to store them even if
someone gave me a pile of them!). No idea of switch speed, but then
maximum speed would not be a design goal anyway!
They were pulled from a pile of phone exchange boards; the various CPUs,
ROM, RAM and a few useful logic chips + transistors were what I was
really after as usable spares, but it seemed a shame not to save all
those relays too.
cheers
Jules
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
Form? Contacts? terminal type?
9:20 a.m.
On Thu, 20 Feb 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
Majority of them are just DPDT types, with a few even just SPDT. Not, I
suspect, enough poles to do anything serious with. They're all
PCB-mounting miniture types (honking great things with open contacts
Well - this is encouraging... if you need more poles, blessed as you
are with an embarrasment of relays - you can just double them up.
PC-types would make a nice retro-mod Simon... and LEDs for the
display... a "best-of-both-worlds" approach, IMHO.
To make Simon's I/O a nice Model 15 Baudot Teletypewriter... paper tape
storage, keyboard entry, page-printer output...
Gee, Mr. Wizard!!!
John
20 Feb
20 Feb
1:16 a.m.
thanks all - looks like I at least have enough relays to work with and
do something, plus there are a couple of possible projects out there :)
cheers
Jules
19 Feb
19 Feb
9:26 a.m.
>>>> "Jules" == Jules Richardson
<julesrichardsonuk(a)yahoo.co.uk> writes:
Jules> Polling list wisdom here... Hmm, any suggestions for anything
Jules> creative to do with around 450 or so 5V relays? I have a
Jules> bucket full here (literally).
Jules> I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
Jules> interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something
Jules> nice and power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory
Jules> status lights :-)
Build a replica of Mark 1? (Or rather, a modest size piece of Mark 1)
The docs are online (!) //www.bitsavers.org/pdf
paul
9:49 a.m.
I think I have most if not all of the Simon article: October 1950 RE -
1955-ish(?) I can go dig them out if you decide on such a cool project.
400 relays would be more than enough to build the whole thing if I recall...
What fun!
-Bryan
Jules Richardson wrote:
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something nice and
power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory status lights :-)
Sorry, brain randomly churning over here :-)
cheers
Jules
10:15 a.m.
On 19 Feb 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something nice and
power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory status lights :-)
Build one of these:
http://www.widomaker.com/~cswiger/simon/
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
10:31 a.m.
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On 19 Feb 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
When I was a wee lad, I used to go to the Buhl Planetarium in
Pittsburgh. They had a relay based machine that would play Tic-tac-toe,
and either always win, or draw. I dunno how many relays or what
contacts/forms you need to implement it. I did a cursory Google search,
and didn't see anything that looked like schematics for it.
--jc
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something nice and
power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory status lights :-)
Build one of these:
http://www.widomaker.com/~cswiger/simon/
10:45 a.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something nice and
power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory status lights :-)
Sorry, brain randomly churning over here :-)
cheers
Jules
Why not build Simon! Have 1951 technology live again.
http://www.widomaker.com/~cswiger/simon/index.htm
Ben.
10:52 a.m.
ben franchuk wrote:
Jules Richardson wrote:
Arg!!! That information was already posted.
Still the Mark-8's on the same site are nice.
http://www.widomaker.com/~cswiger/
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something nice and
power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory status lights :-)
Sorry, brain randomly churning over here :-)
cheers
Jules
Why not build Simon! Have 1951 technology live again.
http://www.widomaker.com/~cswiger/simon/index.htm
Ben. 
11:03 a.m.
The link didn't seem to work, but putting in
http://www.widomaker.com/~cswiger/simon/ worked just fine. I have the
reprint of the R-E articles from October 1950 to about September or so
of 1951. Building one of these things is on my to-do list!
ben franchuk wrote:
Jules Richardson wrote:
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something nice and
power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory status lights :-)
Sorry, brain randomly churning over here :-)
cheers
Jules
Why not build Simon! Have 1951 technology live again.
http://www.widomaker.com/~cswiger/simon/index.htm
Ben. 
12:21 p.m.
Boy that brings back memories...I build a 3 bit "computer" back in 1972 that
was made completely out of 6V Sigma relays. In order to get a "multi-phase
clock" I used a motor from a washjing machine timer to drive an armature
around a homemade circuit board. The beast lived on a 3x6 FOOT peice of
plywood. Still have the pictures in a box somewhere......
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cctalk-bounces(a)classiccmp.org
>> [mailto:cctalk-bounces@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jules Richardson
>> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 6:05 PM
>> To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
>> Subject: OT-ish... what to do with > 400 relays...
>>
>> Polling list wisdom here...
>>
>> Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with
>> around 450 or so 5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
>>
>> I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort
>> of interesting computer-esque demonstration with them!
>> (Something nice and power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of
>> obligatory status lights :-)
>>
>> Sorry, brain randomly churning over here :-)
>>
>> cheers
>>
>> Jules
12:20 p.m.
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, David V. Corbin wrote:
Boy that brings back memories...I build a 3 bit
"computer" back in 1972 that
was made completely out of 6V Sigma relays. In order to get a "multi-phase
clock" I used a motor from a washjing machine timer to drive an armature
around a homemade circuit board. The beast lived on a 3x6 FOOT peice of
plywood. Still have the pictures in a box somewhere......
What on Earth?
Please post the pics!
3 bits???
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
12:54 p.m.
yea show us the photos man!
ed!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf(a)siconic.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 8:20 PM
Subject: RE: OT-ish... what to do with > 400 relays...
Festival
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, David V. Corbin wrote:
> Boy that brings back memories...I build a 3 bit "computer" back in 1972
that
> was made completely out of 6V Sigma relays. In
order to get a
"multi-phase
clock" I
used a motor from a washjing machine timer to drive an armature
around a homemade circuit board. The beast lived on a 3x6 FOOT peice of
plywood. Still have the pictures in a box somewhere......
What on Earth?
Please post the pics!
3 bits???
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage
mputers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at
http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
1:37 p.m.
I will have to look for them, they are deep in storage will other items from
my teenage years.
A little bit of the history though....
My father was a wireman/engineering prototype builder. This is back in the
days when most systems had significant harnesses thay were hand made (with
lacing cord, no such thing a tie wraps). The harnesses were build (typically
my placing a full size blueprint on a piece of plywood, placing "nails" at
all of the junction points and curves, and springs at the end of each leg.
The wires would them be cut to length, stripped, tinned (coated with solder)
and placed onto the board. Lacing cord would then be usig to tie the wires
together (I can still do a half decent running stitch, but can not find any
waxed lacing cord....).
While my father had quite a reputation in the New York area, and was sought
after for may projects by companies such as Grumman, he really did not have
much of a background in how the devices actually worked. On the other hand,
I was growing up around this stuff (burned my hand on a soldering iron for
the first time at the age of 2), and was always curious.
A number of the companies my father did business with had computers (often a
teletype with an acoustic coupler tied into a timeshare service). The
engineers there would often sign me in, and let me play one of the available
games. This started my interest in computers. These same companiew would
regularly scrap various prototype and test fixtures. I would take them home
(more often my father actually brought them to me), and scavange the parts.
One of the most common items (froma company named Beukers Labs if memory
serves...) were SPDT 6V relays (about one cubic inch in size). I had a few
hundred of them.
I had learned about digital logic gates, but had no ready access to any
integrated circuits. My skills were not good enough to make transistors work
reliably (my fault not theirs). So many of my project wer based on relays. I
figured out how to make inverters, or gates, and gates and latches. I
started to combine these into larger circuits. At about the same time my
father brought home a 1967 Digital Logic Handbook. I was completely
fascinated by M series modules (flip chips) and the fact they could build a
real computer (ok they used transistors, but what the heck). The "project
was born.
I started figuring out how to implement a simple instruction set (CLR, ADD,
STORE, TEST, JUMP, READ (Switches), DISPLAY (LAMPS), NOP). The number of
relays was quickly astronomical (try to build an adder with carry....).
Since 3 bits was enough to define an instruction, it became the word size.
Since 3x6 was a standard size for the harness boards (and we had lots of
them!), I used one of them for the layout. After spending quite some time, I
came up with most of the "schematic" and proceeded to start building a
harness. Once the harnes was build, I screwed the relays directly to the
board, and soldered the wires to them.
Of course it did NOT work...But after much troubleshooting (including
wripping most of the harness apart, flywiring between various points. I got
the beast to do what it was designed to do (which really turned out to be
nothing usefull at all... 8 data locations, 1 accumulator, one input port (3
bits), one output ports (3 bits), and 16 instruction locations (which as a
result ment you could only jump to "even" instruction bytes...
Amazing I was so proud of it. That fall I got the opportunity to be on the
school districts "new" PDP-8, and the rest of my life was set in motion....
2:13 p.m.
an interesting start!
thanks for sharing!
shall look forward to seeing the pics...
this would be a neat 1st hand experienced history to
post up on the museum's web site for the 'kids' to
look at.....
ed!
----- Original Message -----
From: "David V. Corbin" <dvcorbin(a)optonline.net>
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:37 PM
Subject: RE: OT-ish... what to do with > 400 relays...
I will have to look for them, they are deep in storage
will other items
from
my teenage years.
A little bit of the history though....
My father was a wireman/engineering prototype builder. This is back in the
days when most systems had significant harnesses thay were hand made (with
lacing cord, no such thing a tie wraps). The harnesses were build
(typically
my placing a full size blueprint on a piece of
plywood, placing "nails" at
all of the junction points and curves, and springs at the end of each leg.
The wires would them be cut to length, stripped, tinned (coated with
solder)
and placed onto the board. Lacing cord would then be
usig to tie the wires
together (I can still do a half decent running stitch, but can not find
any
waxed lacing cord....).
While my father had quite a reputation in the New York area, and was
sought
after for may projects by companies such as Grumman,
he really did not
have
much of a background in how the devices actually
worked. On the other
hand,
I was growing up around this stuff (burned my hand on
a soldering iron for
the first time at the age of 2), and was always curious.
A number of the companies my father did business with had computers (often
a
teletype with an acoustic coupler tied into a
timeshare service). The
engineers there would often sign me in, and let me play one of the
available
games. This started my interest in computers. These
same companiew would
regularly scrap various prototype and test fixtures. I would take them
home
(more often my father actually brought them to me),
and scavange the
parts.
One of the most common items (froma company named
Beukers Labs if memory
serves...) were SPDT 6V relays (about one cubic inch in size). I had a few
hundred of them.
I had learned about digital logic gates, but had no ready access to any
integrated circuits. My skills were not good enough to make transistors
work
reliably (my fault not theirs). So many of my project
wer based on relays.
I
figured out how to make inverters, or gates, and gates
and latches. I
started to combine these into larger circuits. At about the same time my
father brought home a 1967 Digital Logic Handbook. I was completely
fascinated by M series modules (flip chips) and the fact they could build
a
real computer (ok they used transistors, but what the
heck). The "project
was born.
I started figuring out how to implement a simple instruction set (CLR,
ADD,
STORE, TEST, JUMP, READ (Switches), DISPLAY (LAMPS),
NOP). The number of
relays was quickly astronomical (try to build an adder with carry....).
Since 3 bits was enough to define an instruction, it became the word size.
Since 3x6 was a standard size for the harness boards (and we had lots of
them!), I used one of them for the layout. After spending quite some time,
I
came up with most of the "schematic" and
proceeded to start building a
harness. Once the harnes was build, I screwed the relays directly to the
board, and soldered the wires to them.
Of course it did NOT work...But after much troubleshooting (including
wripping most of the harness apart, flywiring between various points. I
got
the beast to do what it was designed to do (which
really turned out to be
nothing usefull at all... 8 data locations, 1 accumulator, one input port
(3
bits), one output ports (3 bits), and 16 instruction
locations (which as a
result ment you could only jump to "even" instruction bytes...
Amazing I was so proud of it. That fall I got the opportunity to be on the
school districts "new" PDP-8, and the rest of my life was set in
motion....
2:14 p.m.
I too did a relay project but it was just a glorified adding machine to
take the drudgery out of adding columns of numbers our 6 grade
math teacher would assign to us...
used to irritate him when I would not 'show my work'
ed!
----- Original Message -----
From: "David V. Corbin" <dvcorbin(a)optonline.net>
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:37 PM
Subject: RE: OT-ish... what to do with > 400 relays...
I will have to look for them, they are deep in storage
will other items
from
my teenage years.
A little bit of the history though....
My father was a wireman/engineering prototype builder. This is back in the
days when most systems had significant harnesses thay were hand made (with
lacing cord, no such thing a tie wraps). The harnesses were build
(typically
my placing a full size blueprint on a piece of
plywood, placing "nails" at
all of the junction points and curves, and springs at the end of each leg.
The wires would them be cut to length, stripped, tinned (coated with
solder)
and placed onto the board. Lacing cord would then be
usig to tie the wires
together (I can still do a half decent running stitch, but can not find
any
waxed lacing cord....).
While my father had quite a reputation in the New York area, and was
sought
after for may projects by companies such as Grumman,
he really did not
have
much of a background in how the devices actually
worked. On the other
hand,
I was growing up around this stuff (burned my hand on
a soldering iron for
the first time at the age of 2), and was always curious.
A number of the companies my father did business with had computers (often
a
teletype with an acoustic coupler tied into a
timeshare service). The
engineers there would often sign me in, and let me play one of the
available
games. This started my interest in computers. These
same companiew would
regularly scrap various prototype and test fixtures. I would take them
home
(more often my father actually brought them to me),
and scavange the
parts.
One of the most common items (froma company named
Beukers Labs if memory
serves...) were SPDT 6V relays (about one cubic inch in size). I had a few
hundred of them.
I had learned about digital logic gates, but had no ready access to any
integrated circuits. My skills were not good enough to make transistors
work
reliably (my fault not theirs). So many of my project
wer based on relays.
I
figured out how to make inverters, or gates, and gates
and latches. I
started to combine these into larger circuits. At about the same time my
father brought home a 1967 Digital Logic Handbook. I was completely
fascinated by M series modules (flip chips) and the fact they could build
a
real computer (ok they used transistors, but what the
heck). The "project
was born.
I started figuring out how to implement a simple instruction set (CLR,
ADD,
STORE, TEST, JUMP, READ (Switches), DISPLAY (LAMPS),
NOP). The number of
relays was quickly astronomical (try to build an adder with carry....).
Since 3 bits was enough to define an instruction, it became the word size.
Since 3x6 was a standard size for the harness boards (and we had lots of
them!), I used one of them for the layout. After spending quite some time,
I
came up with most of the "schematic" and
proceeded to start building a
harness. Once the harnes was build, I screwed the relays directly to the
board, and soldered the wires to them.
Of course it did NOT work...But after much troubleshooting (including
wripping most of the harness apart, flywiring between various points. I
got
the beast to do what it was designed to do (which
really turned out to be
nothing usefull at all... 8 data locations, 1 accumulator, one input port
(3
bits), one output ports (3 bits), and 16 instruction
locations (which as a
result ment you could only jump to "even" instruction bytes...
Amazing I was so proud of it. That fall I got the opportunity to be on the
school districts "new" PDP-8, and the rest of my life was set in
motion....
2:49 p.m.
The wires would them be cut to length, stripped,
tinned (coated with solder)
and placed onto the board. Lacing cord would then be usig to tie the wires
together (I can still do a half decent running stitch, but can not find any
waxed lacing cord....).
You still can buy it, as the telco people use it. The Ace hardware at the
ground floor of 60 Hudson St. (New York telco and networking folk should
know this place) actually had rolls on the shelves.
I can still stitch up things with the cord, but I am not fast like the
old timers. Way back at USR, we were given a contract to built the first
AT&T Worldnet dialup cabinets. Being Bell, lacing was specified (along
with *every* last detail, unlike the "pound to fit, paint to match"
engineering that was AOL Big Dial dialup). I was the only one at USR that
could lace up harnesses, so I spent something like six hours on one
cabinet. Out of 240. People were not happy. We convinced AT&T to just use
tiewraps.
The best lacing job I have ever seen is on World War 2 submarine power
panels. Essentially, it is a standard stitch, but there is NO space
between the loops. You can not see the wires thru the lacing.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
3:13 p.m.
"but there is NO space
between the loops. You can not see the wires thru the lacing."
nice stuff... but oh so time consuming.....
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Donzelli" <aw288(a)osfn.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Cc: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 10:49 PM
Subject: RE: OT-ish... what to do with > 400 relays...
> The wires would them be cut to length, stripped,
tinned (coated with
solder)
> and placed onto the board. Lacing cord would then
be usig to tie the
wires
> together (I can still do a half decent running
stitch, but can not find
any
waxed lacing
cord....).
You still can buy it, as the telco people use it. The Ace hardware at the
ground floor of 60 Hudson St. (New York telco and networking folk should
know this place) actually had rolls on the shelves.
I can still stitch up things with the cord, but I am not fast like the
old timers. Way back at USR, we were given a contract to built the first
AT&T Worldnet dialup cabinets. Being Bell, lacing was specified (along
with *every* last detail, unlike the "pound to fit, paint to match"
engineering that was AOL Big Dial dialup). I was the only one at USR that
could lace up harnesses, so I spent something like six hours on one
cabinet. Out of 240. People were not happy. We convinced AT&T to just use
tiewraps.
The best lacing job I have ever seen is on World War 2 submarine power
panels. Essentially, it is a standard stitch, but there is NO space
between the loops. You can not see the wires thru the lacing.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
11:25 p.m.
New subject: more lacing cable! RE: OT-ish... what to do with > 400 relays...
At 12:49 AM 2/20/04 -0500, you wrote:
At one of the jobs that I had at MMC we had a bunch of Macs, PCs, HPs
running Unix and a mix of other computers all in one office. We had them
all networked together with a hodge-podge networks to transfer data from
one to another and there were cables dangling all over the place. The
office was made up of the movable partitions and the cables were just
strung along the walls and over the partitions. They were a real mess,
people were always tripping over them and they'd fall off the partitions
and knock things over. I finally got tired of it so I went to work EARLY
one morning and brought a roll of lacing tape with me. I straightened out
the cables and run them along the top of the partition walls. I then pulled
the snap-on covers off the top of the partitions and laced the cables to
the covers and then snapped them back in place. It really cleaned up the
place. The rest of the crew was quite impressed when they came to work and
found all the cables up out of the way and neatly tied down. I don't think
they'd ever seen cables TIED down before.
> The wires would them be cut to length, stripped,
tinned (coated with
solder)
and placed
onto the board. Lacing cord would then be usig to tie the wires
together (I can still do a half decent running stitch, but can not find any
waxed lacing cord....).
You still can buy it, as the telco people use it. The Ace hardware at the
ground floor of 60 Hudson St. (New York telco and networking folk should
know this place) actually had rolls on the shelves.
I can still stitch up things with the cord, but I am not fast like the
old timers. Way back at USR, we were given a contract to built the first
AT&T Worldnet dialup cabinets. Being Bell, lacing was specified (along
with *every* last detail, unlike the "pound to fit, paint to match"
engineering that was AOL Big Dial dialup). I was the only one at USR that
could lace up harnesses, so I spent something like six hours on one
cabinet. Out of 240. People were not happy. We convinced AT&T to just use
tiewraps.
The best lacing job I have ever seen is on World War 2 submarine power
panels. Essentially, it is a standard stitch, but there is NO space
between the loops. You can not see the wires thru the lacing.
Must have been a union job!
Everyone at the company that I worked for prided themselves on the neat
cabling jobs that they did. All the cable turns were perfect and there was
never any slack anywhere in their cable runs. Then they got a job wiring up
instrumentation in one of the block houses at Kennedy Space Center. They
spent a couple of weeks on the job and it was THE best and neatest job that
they'd ever done. Then the KSC inspectors came in to check it. They looked
at the cabling and commented about how neat it was and then told them to
tear it out and start over! They'd forgotten to tell them that the block
house (or that room at least) was on springs and could move up to a foot
and half. They had to tear out all the cable and redo it and leave 3 foot
loops of slack cable to allow for movement of the block house. C'est La Vie!
Joe
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
10:52 p.m.
New subject: lacing cord RE: OT-ish... what to do with > 400 relays...
At 11:37 PM 2/19/04 -0500, you wrote:
I will have to look for them, they are deep in storage
will other items from
my teenage years.
A little bit of the history though....
My father was a wireman/engineering prototype builder. This is back in the
days when most systems had significant harnesses thay were hand made (with
lacing cord, no such thing a tie wraps). The harnesses were build (typically
my placing a full size blueprint on a piece of plywood, placing "nails" at
all of the junction points and curves, and springs at the end of each leg.
The wires would them be cut to length, stripped, tinned (coated with solder)
and placed onto the board. Lacing cord would then be usig to tie the wires
together (I can still do a half decent running stitch, but can not find any
waxed lacing cord....).
That brings back memories. I got my first job in electronics when I was
16 or so. I worked for a company that put in central office systems for
telephone companies. Since I was young, energetic and skinny I had the job
of running the cables on the overhead wireracks that ran around the offices
above the equipment. Once I ran the cables I had to tie them down with
lacing cord. Yeah, the round cord not the flat tape. You had to pull it
super tight and the stuff would really cut into your hands. We tied it
about every foot. We had to tie around the wire bundle and then put loops
between every horizontal layer and loops between every vertical columme. A
typical wire bundle was perhaps 8 layers deep and 14 cables wide (we used
54 pair cable). Runs would be 80 to 150 feet long so I did a LOT of tying.
It would take over a week just to run the cables and tie them down. I'd
frequently use over a spool of cord on one job. After that I had to
terminate all the cables on wire blocks but that's another story.
I think I still have one roll of lacing cord but other than that I
haven't seen any more of it for YEARS. However when I worked for MMC we
used lacing tape. This stuff is wide and flat and doesn't cut into your
hands the way that the round cord did. It also doesn't have the heavy wax
coating that the round cord did. I see the flat tape occasionally around
the hamfests and surplus stores. Let me know if you want a roll.
Joe
12:40 p.m.
Polling list wisdom here...
Hmm, any suggestions for anything creative to do with around 450 or so
5V relays? I have a bucket full here (literally).
I can't help thinking I should be able to wire up some sort of
interesting computer-esque demonstration with them! (Something nice and
power-hungry, noisy, and with plenty of obligatory status lights :-)
A few random thoughts...
You say they're mostly SPDT types, IIRC. You can. of course. parallel the
coils of several relays to make more poles if you need them.
Traditionally, the thing to build would be a tic=tac-toe machine :-)
See if you can find 'We built our own computers', perhaps on an
inter-library loan. It describes a few simple relay computers...
My guess is that with 450 relays you could make a simple 4 bit ALU, a
couple of registiers, etc, and sequence the whole thing using a home-made
paper tape reader.. Sounds like a fun project...
-tony
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