On 10/27/2015 8:31 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 27/10/2015 07:53 PM, Stephen wrote:
>> http://www.righto.com/2015/03/12-minute-mandelbrot-fractals-on-50.html
>
> Qui-binary...?
>
> My mind is blown.
>
I know and I thought BCD was strange.

>
> As an aside, Hackaday.io seems to be full of people building computers
> "from scratch", using only individual logic gates. One guy claimed to be
> building a computer from nothing but 7400s...
>
> ....until you realise that he means the members of the 7400 family that
> implement entire counters, encoders, decoders, latches, etc.
>

I hope he has a big power supply and lots of fans.
In the mid 70's I built a digital clock out of TTL. It needed 25 amps at 
5 volts to drive the logic. A couple of years later I built one out of 
CMOS and that would run for an hour on a PP3 battery. (It was mains 
powered the battery was for backup.)

> Another guy claimed to by building a computer from discrete
> transistors... until you realise that he's using an Arduino to control
> it. Wuh??
>
The first machine I worked on was the Honeywell H516. It used discrete 
components not ICs.

> It's interesting to me that the IBM 1401 appears to be a *real* computer
> made only from discrete transistors. I'd always assumed that such a
> thing would fill an entire warehouse. But it doesn't actually look all
> that big...

That is a media exaggeration. They were forever showing images of 
computer systems in enormous clean rooms with technicians in white coats.
One company I worked for had an old PDP 8. It fitted inside a 19 inch 
cabinet. I only once opened the door to look at the guts. I then prayed 
it would never break. ;-)

> Only just finished reading this.
>
> Man, that is some special brand of craziness, right there. Mental stuff.

Funnily enough. His project reminded me of you. Did you not once write 
programs in PostScript or Printer Command Language?

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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