[HN Gopher] Throbac: THrifty Roman numeral BAckwards-looking Com...
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       Throbac: THrifty Roman numeral BAckwards-looking Computer
        
       Author : rfarley04
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2024-11-01 14:54 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (mitmuseum.mit.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (mitmuseum.mit.edu)
        
       | mmastrac wrote:
       | Claude Shannon was the Fabrice Bellard of his time (or is it the
       | other way around?). If he were around today, his projects would
       | constantly be on HN.
       | 
       | I am curious to know if there's a gene for these incredibly
       | driven, very intelligent people that also _finish projects_.
        
         | Sesse__ wrote:
         | One of my lecturers at university (in information theory) once
         | talked about the conference where he had met Shannon. Shannon
         | was already a legend, and didn't show himself much, so there
         | was a lot of whispering, and someone figured out it would be
         | nice to have him deliver a speech at the dinner. The room was
         | buzzing with anticipation when Shannon got up from his chair;
         | what wisdom would he impart upon the crowd?
         | 
         | "I haven't prepared anything to say. But I could always juggle
         | a bit." So he took out five balls and showed off his juggling.
         | And that was that :-)
         | 
         | (Interestingly, said lecturer also mentioned this Roman numeral
         | computer; this is the only time I've seen an actual picture of
         | it!)
        
       | schlauerfox wrote:
       | How can they only have one low resolution picture and only
       | pictures of the outside?? What display tech does it use? I can't
       | imagine there are Roman Numeral Nixie tubes.
       | https://www.kuenzigbooks.com/pages/books/28672/claude-e-shan... I
       | see Clear Lower, Clear KBD, Clear Upper. 7 'digits' display, but
       | wow if anything needed a manual...
        
         | roywiggins wrote:
         | The document is available on IEEExplore:
         | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5311583
         | 
         | I've reproduced here: https://pdfupload.io/docs/13f78f9d
        
           | schlauerfox wrote:
           | Amazing, thank you for the link! There's an entire 'collected
           | papers' on the IEEE website. I'm going to miss my college
           | library accounts now i'm graduated!
        
         | wolfgang42 wrote:
         | After staring at the linked PDF for a while, I think the
         | display was a collection of lightbulbs (presumably behind a
         | mask plate), probably arranged something like this:
         | Upper dial   V XV          (Quotient)    III
         | Lower dial LLLVV       (Accumulator) XXX X
         | IIII
        
           | schlauerfox wrote:
           | Yeah, it's a relay counter like a score motor in a pinball
           | machine, but each rotor is different since the I is mod 5,
           | the V is mod2 and the LX is mod 80, directly connected to the
           | lights. The principles discussion is well done. Wow I love
           | old tech documentation! I still don't have a good
           | visualization of what the display 'dial' looks like
        
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       (page generated 2024-11-01 23:01 UTC)