4 ms·
This is a duplicate post from a while ago, but fascinating all the same.
by joshsharp 17y ago
This is a duplicate post from a while ago, but fascinating all the same.
- mgunes 17y agoIndeed: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=629383 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=629383
- jacquesm 17y agoWhat's especially impressive is that the electrolytic capacitors in it haven't failed after all these years.
- jordanb 17y agoI wish he had opened it up and shown the insides. I bet it's some fantastic assemblage of point-to-point circuitry. They may have avoided having to use electrolytic capacitors. Or they might have used especially high-quality ones given that it was a specialized (and probably very expensive) piece of equipment. I would have expected such a device from 1964 to have at least a few tubs in it, but the fact that it didn't require any 'warm up' time after he switched it on suggests that that's not the case.
- jff 17y agoTransistor devices had been around for years at that point; we were already making transistor computers. Also, electrolytic caps are pretty easy to replace--they're big, clearly labelled, and it's not like the functionality has changed (a 100 uF capacitor is still a 100 uF capacitor).