Components available - the rest of the story
curiousmarc3 at gmail.com
curiousmarc3 at gmail.com
Fri Sep 9 02:59:48 CDT 2016
I might be interested, as I already have two FFT systems that I am restoring (an HP 5420A and a HP 5451C). I am local. Just drop me an email.
Marc
Sent from my iPad
> On Sep 8, 2016, at 10:08 AM, Tom Gardner <t.gardner at computer.org> wrote:
>
> The rest of the story.
>
> As Al pointed out, much to our surprise, the museum has rejected an offer
> from Art's estate for the donation of a Fast Fourier Transform computing
> system which included both the Unicomp Computer and a hardware FFT
> accelerator. This is a very strange decision since the system is one of the
> earliest if not the first implementation of a FFT in anti-submarine and
> anti-aircraft warfare. FFT mathematics dates to 1965 but processor until
> much later had the power to do it real time in software at the resolution
> necessary, so Art invented the hardware accelerator and multiple units were
> sold to the Navy. The estate is appealing the museum's decision.
>
> The estate would like to keep the FFT system together and so if the museum
> continues with a cranial rectal inversion it will look to other alternatives
> including those of u who have already
>
> I will respond by email not later than tomorrow to the several list members
> who expressed interest in the components and/or the computer. I'm busy
> today helping set up the Atari retrospective for the IEEE Silicon Valley
> History Committee.
>
> Regards,
>
> Tom
>
> Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2016 18:16:23 -0700
> From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org>
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Components available
>
>
>> On 9/6/16 4:18 PM, Tom Gardner wrote:
>>
>> A friend of mine died recently; he was amongst many things an
>> electronics tinkerer and has a closet full of small parts in bin
>> cabinets (resistors, capacitors, ICs, transistors, hardware, etc.).
>
>
> There is also a Unicomp 18 bit minicomputer, paper tape reader, and FFT
> processor circa 1972 in the garage (6ft rack) with full documentation.
>
> I walked out of the donations meeting with the other curators today who
> thought it was a piece of s**t and didn't want to take it, calling it a
> 'dumpster fire'
>
> Art was a friend of mine.
>
> Hopefully it can go someplace where it can be appreciated.
> Talk to Tom about it, unfortunately, time is short.
>
>
>
>
> --
> 73 AF6WS
> Bickley Consulting West Inc.
> http://bickleywest.com
>
> "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
>
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