How many computers? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

14 Jul 1998

...
 That sounds like another one I don't have, but read
through an
interlibrary loan: "How to build a working Digital Computer", by E.
Alcosser, Hayden, 1964. It used a bunch of ganged switches to make a 4
bit adder. Can you look, anyway? 
I will look for it... I also have an old book called 'Star Ship
Simulation' published by Dilithium Press...

...
 Sounds like you had fun! 
Sure did...

...
 The picture in the Edmund catalog looked like it was
made from various
colored shapes of flat plastic. I know it wouldn't be quite the same, but
if you have the documentation and once had your hands on one, could you
recreate it from mat board and an exacto knife? Or some plastic as
required. 
Yes, it was made out of colored plastic shapes... with a few shaped
metal rods and a number of what amounted to 1/2" (If I remember) sections
of plastic straws which were used to do the actual programming.

The documentation shows the parts, but not to scale... if I had a
real one, I'd try to duplicate the parts...

I remember the follow-on unit, the DigicompII, was not so much a
computer as it was a game of Nim...  I got that one as well, but
I preferred the DigicompI

					Megan Gentry
					Former RT-11 Developer

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