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Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #1293

Re: Anyone (else) own a Cardiac?

#1293
From: r... Robert Krawitz
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1990 23:44
31 lines
2397 bytes
In article <29...@draken.nada.kth.se>, ianf@nada (Ian Feldman) writes:
]In article <65...@internal.Apple.COM> c...@Apple.COM (Christopher Pettus) writes
]about early "computers":
]>
]> 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
]> class.  Does anyone else remember (or even have one of) _those_?
]
]  Yea, I have one still, bought it by mailorder for US$ 12.- from Bell
]  Labs (I think; can't remember properly).  Great stuff... a _real_
]  paper-computer with one register, 100 memory locations, programmed in
]  3-digit decimal code using a 10-command assembly language, complete
]  with a pointer to the current memory cell in the shape of a lady-bug  ;-)

I got my paws on a few of them back in elementary school (for some
reason one of the teachers got a whole bunch of them & handed them out
to all interested parties).  I remember that the PC (ladybug) kept
getting lost, so I modified it by attaching it with a piece of wire (one
of my more successful hardware hacks :-) ).

]  I only ever wrote one and a half program for it though... some sort
]  of a generic "add two values and output it in cell 100" routine from
]  the book and (half of) something else that was even simpler than that.

The double precision arithmetic was neat, though.

I could probably still dig the thing out next time I visit my parents.
-- 
ames >>>>>>>>>  |	Robert Krawitz <r...@think.com>	245 First St.
bloom-beacon >  |think!rlk	(postmaster)		Cambridge, MA  02142
harvard >>>>>>  .	Thinking Machines Corp.		(617)876-1111
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References: <6822@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> <840@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> <4816@brazos.Rice.edu> <6598@internal.Apple.COM> <2904@draken.nada.kth.se>

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From: r...@think.com (Robert Krawitz)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Anyone (else) own a Cardiac?
Message-ID: <33900@news.Think.COM>
Date: 12 Feb 90 23:44:41 GMT
References: <6822@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> <840@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> <4816@brazos.Rice.edu> <6598@internal.Apple.COM> <2904@draken.nada.kth.se>
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Organization: Thinking Machines Corp., Cambridge MA
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Posted: Tue Feb 13 00:44:41 1990
In-reply-to: ianf@nada.kth.se (Ian Feldman)
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