🚀 go-pugleaf

>Well, I suppose you could count "Cardiac" (sic), a cardboard sliding-part
>based computer that was used in my high school's introduction to computers

Oooh, we used t' dream of 'avin' cardboard computer.  We made do wi' paper!

Seriously, Look in IRE (now IEEE) Transactions on Electronic Computers,
volume 7, number 4, September 1958, pp 254-8.  This is the Science Education
Subcommitte Newsletter section, which features PAPAC-00 by Rollin P. Mayer.
A build-it-yourself 1 bit 1 instruction computer requiring only a copy of
the article and some pins.

One of my students built one of these last month, from 80 gram per square
meter paper. Yes, it does work. I suppose that you could argue about just
how programmable it is, but does a journal with a built-in computer beat
smart cards?

Is this the progenitor of "The Hitch-Hikers' Guide to The Galaxy"?

-Iain..

p.s. I've just thought.  I could fax that computer to someone (copyright
permitting).  Electronic transfer of a _processor_.  The first computer
_hardware_ to be protected by copyright instead of patent?