🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Sep10....@hq.demos.su> a...@hq.demos.su (Vadim G. Antonov) writes from a new site on the net:

>	... I've hacked machines from relays and gas-filled
>	tubes, transistors and (of course) all generations of ICs
>	(I'm 25 years old). ...

Well, I've got a few years on you.  During my in-and-out college career in
the 60's I actually designed a power controller used on PDP-10 peripheral
controllers.  It used gadgets I've never seen before or since, informally
called "drizzle relays".

Each had a toroidal coil wound for line voltage.  Within the hole was
a glass cylinder partly filled with mercury.  A little floating frob
with a steel armature moved up and down as the coil was activated or
deactivated.  When the coil changed state, the frob moved up or down,
allowing mercury to drizzle in or out of a little hole somewhere.  A
few seconds after the coil fired, the mercury level passed a point 
where it made or broke a contact.

Thus we had electromechanofluidic delays.  They were used to hold
a reset line low for a few seconds after a controller or channel
was powered up or to graunch a disable line down a few seconds before
power off, allowing the power to be switched on and off without spewing garbage
into a running system. (Remember that a controller was a refrigerator-sized
box with one light per flip-flop and its own forty-pound power supply,
not a boring, unblinking, five-volt chip.)

Anyone else work with these gadgets?

>	Hello from Moscow!
>
>	Vadim Antonov
>	DEMOS, Moscow, USSR
>	(It is NOT a joke!)

Hello from Silicon Valley!  Good to hear from you!

If you'd like to learn about capitalism,  I'd be pleased to arrange a
trade of Levi's for caviar! :-) (It IS a joke!)
-- 
  |  ph...@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG 		 | Phil Gustafson
  |  {ames|pyramid|vsi1}!zorch!phil 	 | UNIX/Graphics Consultant
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