A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
1–10 of 42 posts
Re: A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
#2That's cute.
What's the memory? It ought to be a delay line, for traditional reasons.
Re: A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
#3I always thought it would be fun to create a vacuum tube computer in which the primary computation is performed by a couple of vacuum tubes (i.e. forming a single NAND gate). All of the intermediate results, would be handled by a regular microprocessor but the vacuum tubes are employed to perform the computation. It would glow and look cool (maybe).
Re: A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
#4I always thought it would be fun to create a vacuum tube computer in which the primary computation is performed by a couple of vacuum tubes (i.e. forming a single NAND gate). All of the intermediate results, would be handled by a regular microprocessor but the vacuum tubes are employed to perform the computation. It would glow and look cool (maybe).
trouble with tubes is they look the same whether theyre idle or busy. I like relay compututers, since the clacking really is the computation, they're a step above LED indicating the state of transistors, since compute would happen with or without their indicating.
Re: A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
#5That's cute. What's the memory? It ought to be a delay line, for traditional reasons.
This is a demonstration board for the bigger brother, UE-1. UE-1 will be driven by paper tape, though core memory keeps being discussed. I don't think they are considering delay lines -- might be too challenging/fiddly.
Re: A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
#6Why would you use tubes if you're not making guitar distortion?
Do you really need pentodes at the speeds involved? It looks like the guy is toggling a switch by hand to generate a clock signal. Pentodes are devices for RF amplification.
Those 6AU6 tubes are 7 pin units, but they contain only one pentode element. Two pins for the heater, then five pins to hook up the pentode.
There exist common 8 or 9 pin tubes that contain two triodes, with which you could cut the tube count in half. (You wouldn't save any money because those tubes cost about twice as much. But less board area and fewer tube sockets counts for something.
Re: A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
#7Why would you use tubes if you're not making guitar distortion? Do you really need pentodes at the speeds involved? It looks like the guy is toggling a switch by hand to generate a clock signal. Pentodes are devices for RF amplification. Those 6AU6 tubes are 7 pin units, but they contain only one pentode element. Two pins for the heater, then five pins to hook up the pentode. There exist common 8 or 9 pin tubes that…
IIRC he has a few thousand of these 6AU6 tubes that he got in bulk. So he has designed most of his tube applications around these tubes.
About why to use tubes? I don't know, entertainment purpuoses I guess. His ventures into computing using tubes entertain some at least[0].
[0](n=1)
Re: A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
#8That's cute. What's the memory? It ought to be a delay line, for traditional reasons.
This is a demonstration board for the bigger brother, UE-1. UE-1 will be driven by paper tape, though core memory keeps being discussed. I don't think they are considering delay lines -- might be too challenging/fiddly.
By the way there are cheap and easy to use quartz delay lines used in old TVs.
Re: A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
#9That's cute. What's the memory? It ought to be a delay line, for traditional reasons.
This is a demonstration board for the bigger brother, UE-1. UE-1 will be driven by paper tape, though core memory keeps being discussed. I don't think they are considering delay lines -- might be too challenging/fiddly.
Torsion wire delay lines seem pretty DIY friendly, and resistant to interference. They've been used in low-end computers for a reason. (in contrast to the core memory)
Re: A Vacuum Tube Single Board 1-Bit Computer [video]
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a demonstration board for the bigger brother, UE-1. UE-1 will be driven by paper tape, though core memory keeps being discussed. I don't think they are considering delay lines -- might be too challenging/fiddly.
By the way there are cheap and easy to use quartz delay lines used in old TVs.
Those provide 64 microseconds delays, which is probably too short to store data for a slow machine like this. Delay lines used in storage typically provided single-digit ms.