Free - Retro Super Computer

mrsparky

Once upon a time, in a era before apps, everything had it's place. Where men in white coats earnestly smoked pipes and nerds where safely locked up in garages. Lived ... the Super Computer!

With less processing power than a singing birthday card, these early mega machines could flash their little lights faster than a dalek on acid. So heres a Altair inspired 3D homage to one of the first...

http://www.sparkyworld.co.uk/3d10own.htm

Lord Ganthor

Jeeze...look at that thing...where's the screen? How are you supposed to text on that? So, is this like from the old days or something? I'll bet you had to start it like my grandpa's old lawnmower...with that pull cord...thing, right?

Seriously, it's kind of cool. Might make an interesting series. Something good to stock an apocalyptic museum with, like in The Time Machine. Nice work.

robkelk

Now that is nifty, even if it does bring back memories of having to program by flipping the toggle switches...

Thanks!

skipper25

Oh, it takes yer back.......

Dream Cutter

Lord Ganthor said:

Jeeze...look at that thing...where's the screen? How are you supposed to text on that? So, is this like from the old days or something? I'll bet you had to start it like my grandpa's old lawnmower...with that pull cord...thing, right?

Seriously, it's kind of cool. Might make an interesting series. Something good to stock an apocalyptic museum with, like in The Time Machine. Nice work.

I used to work on systems like this. It uses volatile, magnetic core memory and must be programmed from entirety (No operating system) on boot using boolean logic. The "display" is the state of each toggle switch and the indicator light above it. All computation (as done on modern systems too) is in binary. Each switch represents a binary value in memory. This particular unit is transistor based and very compact and tiny in comparison to the earlier tube versions.

bytescapes

I think it was the Altair that actually had a BASIC interpreter ... but in the early days, you had to enter it manually, through the front-panel, by throwing switches.

The interpreter was 2K, so that meant 2048 x 8 switch positions. Not so bad, until you remember that it didn't have any form of mass storage, so if the power went off, all your work went away.

The Wikipedia article about it makes fairly interesting reading.

Oh, and P.S. Thank you for the freebie, Mr Sparky.

Seliah (Childe of Fyre)

robkelk said:

Now that is nifty, even if it does bring back memories of having to program by flipping the toggle switches...

Thanks!

...and all those CARDS!...(though that was after this model, I believe...)

But does anyone remember the cards? If you didn't get them fed into the machine in EXACTLY the right order..........lol

Thank you for this, Sparky!

RCTSpanky

Thanks for the freebie. Your freebies are always awesome and sometimes surprises. This one was a surprise, because of the thread title I've expected something like the one on the picture below.

Would be great, if someone could create a retro-computer like this one too for free ;)

Dream Cutter

Seliah said:

robkelk said:

Now that is nifty, even if it does bring back memories of having to program by flipping the toggle switches...

Thanks!

...and all those CARDS!...(though that was after this model, I believe...)

But does anyone remember the cards? If you didn't get them fed into the machine in EXACTLY the right order..........lol

Thank you for this, Sparky!

Yes - I recall the card readers. They were a service nightmare - paper dust was hell on the mechanisims. So you had a cart full of cards stacked to load up the program. About 2K LOL

mrsparky

thanks everyone = didn't ever use one of those personally - but if you like old computers I'd recommend
The Manchester Science Musuem - (http://www.mosi.org.uk)
...it's also home to the Computer Conservation Society, which publishes a magazine about old computers..
http://www.computerconservationsociety.org/resurrection.htm

Plus Ockham has kindly made a poser version which actually lights up!
Use same link as before to download that.

WandW

mrsparky said:

Plus Ockham has kindly made a poser version which actually lights up!
Use same link as before to download that.

Very cool, and many thanx!

However, what's with the "erstwhile Ockham"; he didn’t die, I hope.. ;)

Dorseyland

Life magazine, 1961, via this interesting page:
http://www.anglonautes.com/voc_it_main/voc_it_pc_science_1/voc_pc_science_1.htm

WandW

Dorseyland said:

Life magazine, 1961, via this interesting page:
http://www.anglonautes.com/voc_it_main/voc_it_pc_science_1/voc_pc_science_1.htm

I have that Oscilloscope in my basement; still works... :)

Dorseyland

I bought a cheap spintharoscope in the '60s, a viewer for the radioactive deterioration of radium.

Still works, but I ended up with X-ray vision and these days there's much less I want to see.

nereus541_f392973b9f

Dream Cutter said:

Seliah said:

robkelk said:

Now that is nifty, even if it does bring back memories of having to program by flipping the toggle switches...

Thanks!

...and all those CARDS!...(though that was after this model, I believe...)

But does anyone remember the cards? If you didn't get them fed into the machine in EXACTLY the right order..........lol

Thank you for this, Sparky!

Yes - I recall the card readers. They were a service nightmare - paper dust was hell on the mechanisims. So you had a cart full of cards stacked to load up the program. About 2K LOL

Not to mention the disasters caused by extension cords stretched across the doorway as you wheel in 24 boxes of unsorted meteorological data. (Luckily, card to tape was just coming online.)

mrsparky

Nereus541 - didn't have cards but I recall using a Vax system at the uni.

BTW - if you like old computers in poser format..check this out...

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/22820/