What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

[Erik Baigar]

Hi Jon,

thanks for your email and the positive words...


On Wed, 11 Jan 2017, Jon Elson wrote:

> On 01/11/2017 07:03 AM, Erik Baigar wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Hi together!
>> 
>> Really an impressive amount of replies and quite cool equipment which
>> gets preserver all over the world! Really great!
>> 
>>> From my side I have various MIL-SPEC gear. (1) First of all an intertial
>> navigation system Ferranti FIN1010 from the early 1970ties containing an
>> archaic bitserial computer with 16/32 bit word length (can be switched
>> on the fly by toggling a bit - Architecture unique and some mixture of
>> Ferranti Pegasus and Argus):
>> 
>> http://www.baigar.de/TornadoComputerUnit/FIN1010-Platform-20121106.divx 
>> 
>> (This is restored to working condition, see my older video on YouTube:
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQqfxiGgd8 I do only know of 4 such
>> systems still onlin on the world)
>> 
> Looks like you just have the gyro spun up, there seem to be no cables
> attached in the video.

In all videos the system is completely up and running i.e. cables
attached. The platform is only moving in this way if the servo
mechanisms are running. The momentum of the gyroscopes is way to
small to keep the platform leveled.

Interesting is, that the unit spans all aeras of computation:
Integration of turn rate is done in the gyroscopes (mechanically,
i.e. they are "Rate integrating Gyroscopes"). On the other hand 
integration of acceleration to velocity is done by the analog computer 
which also takes care of initial alignment, continuos platform leveling 
and it also applies various corrections like crosstalk between
gyros and accelerometers, temperature compensation, an-isoelastic
correction and stuff like this - it contains lots of analog multipliers
etc. 
Last but not leas the digital computer is supervising the analog 
circuitry, it is taking care of earth rotation, it is calculating
position and all other navigation parameters, handles all communication 
with the external world and it applies an additional correction for gyro 
drift which it can determine in a 4h long calibration cycle.

      Erik.