The AM Forum
March 29, 2024, 09:22:08 AM *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
 
   Home   Help Calendar Links Staff List Gallery Login Register  
Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Resurecting ENIAC....sort of  (Read 5237 times)
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
RolandSWL
Contributing
Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 253


« on: November 25, 2014, 02:46:33 PM »

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/eniac-unearthed/

How many gallons of wrinkle paint?

RSWL........
Logged
Opcom
Patrick J. / KD5OEI
Contributing
Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 8308



WWW
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2014, 10:10:01 PM »

It would be a beauty to behold. Fine decorations.

A tube type computer is really something else. I was privileged to own an analog tube computer, a small Heathkit.

A digital tube computer would be the thing to have, the ne plus ultra, and while bits pieces are nice, I'd only bother if (I was rich and) the thing was complete enough to prove it worked. Indeed, there were small enough ones to fit any living room and blend with the XYL's decor.

Long live the remaining vacuum tube computers.

Does Neil Young deserve an apology for the following?

We've been through
Some math together
With trunks of cabling
Still to come
We found compliments of two
With tubes forever
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your glass heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Well, it was
Naval Ballistics in 1952
When I last saw you alive
But we caught a whiff
Of the tubes' decline
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your steel heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Maybe The Big Boys
Have got you now
With their wives
Sceaming "No more junk, No"
Cutting back' on
That huge electric bill
Until the end of time.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your glass heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

===========


* 000474370.png (97.23 KB, 627x494 - viewed 450 times.)

* 0004_02_l.jpg (868.93 KB, 1000x683 - viewed 481 times.)
Logged

Radio Candelstein - Flagship Station of the NRK Radio Network.
John K5PRO
Member

Offline Offline

Posts: 1033



« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2014, 11:58:27 PM »

In 1992 I worked with an EE who designed hardware for the 1950s MANIAC, Los Alamos digital computer after they borrowed time on ENIAC.
Thousands of tube logic gates and latches. 
Logged
John K5PRO
Member

Offline Offline

Posts: 1033



« Reply #3 on: November 27, 2014, 05:58:24 PM »

Here are some photos of Los Alamos' MANIAC, and Jim Richardson, hardware designer with Nick Metropolis, scientist/programmer. I worked with Jim just before he retired the last time and then died. I don't think there is much left of Maniac I or II, second generation digital computers after ENIAC. 


* Maniac.jpg (411.51 KB, 1122x1350 - viewed 452 times.)

* 7597487280_d591e743e5_o.jpg (274.93 KB, 947x964 - viewed 438 times.)

* 7597487394_42e7609dcc_o.jpg (184.56 KB, 834x1069 - viewed 488 times.)
Logged
John K5PRO
Member

Offline Offline

Posts: 1033



« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2014, 03:50:28 AM »

I found these old articles on the ENIAC and the MANIAC and others. You can tell the date of these reports where one speaks of the Cray One as the latest thing. I heard that Los Alamos bought serial number 1 of that machine.

* 07-15.pdf (1653.6 KB - downloaded 531 times.)
* 14-05.pdf (1777.08 KB - downloaded 468 times.)
Logged
Tom WA3KLR
Contributing
Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 2120



« Reply #5 on: November 28, 2014, 08:41:10 AM »

There is a related movie coming out "The Imitation Game" about Alan Turing and the WWII British code-cracking which leads him to develop the first electronic computers in Britain, a parallel effort to the Americans.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/?ref_=nv_sr_6

I saw the preview recently and the mocked-up computer they showed appeared to be an electro-mechanical one.  I presume though that the movie deals with human relationships and job politics more than technical details.
Logged

73 de Tom WA3KLR  AMI # 77   Amplitude Modulation - a force Now and for the Future!
John K5PRO
Member

Offline Offline

Posts: 1033



« Reply #6 on: November 28, 2014, 05:47:47 PM »

I'm planning to see that when all the shopping madness is clearing up and it arrives at our theatres.
Logged
WBear2GCR
Member

Offline Offline

Posts: 4135


Brrrr- it's cold in the shack! Fire up the BIG RIG


WWW
« Reply #7 on: November 28, 2014, 06:26:17 PM »

So, let me understand this - all they had was front panels with lights? So they kludged it so that it blinked??

THAT's what they are putting on display??

Logged

_-_- bear WB2GCR                   http://www.bearlabs.com
RolandSWL
Contributing
Member
*
Offline Offline

Posts: 253


« Reply #8 on: November 29, 2014, 11:25:20 AM »

Don't forget the new paint. It's now Techno-Art.

Anybody know what the tube line up was?

RSWL.........
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

AMfone - Dedicated to Amplitude Modulation on the Amateur Radio Bands
 AMfone © 2001-2015
Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines
Page created in 0.037 seconds with 19 queries.