7 ms·
A modern 8 bit design, built using 1950s thermionic valves
- dang 2y ago[stub for offtopicness]
- GaylordTuring 2y agoGod dammit! I thought Valve had released a stationary computer. I was ready to open my wallet even before clicking the link ;(
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- artemonster 2y agohl3 not confirmed :(
- dr_dshiv 2y agoIs that a joke? Because this is the most hackernews article ever
- dang 2y agoOh the article is thoroughly on topic! I mean the comments related to Valve the company. The thread was filling up with those before we changed the title. (Submitted title was "Valve.computer".) Sometimes when there are too many offtopic comments like this I make a stub comment, move all the offtopic subthreads underneath it, and then collapse it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20stub&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nico 2y agoWhat a fascinating project. So cool Thank you for making it happen and sharing it here Super interesting read and very inspiring too
- 082349872349872 2y ago> When all the valves are glowing, I check the fire extinguisher is full, and run the code. It wasn't until working with valve hardware that I finally grokked the original difference between a cold boot and a warm one.
- ahazred8ta 2y ago♫ "And when they turn the power on, it's sure to dim the lamps / At plus and minus 16 volts and fourteen hundred amps." -- Frank Hayes
- Terr_ 2y agoSong audio: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bMS6G83NqFQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bMS6G83NqFQ
- JJMcJ 2y agoTelephone central exchanges used to have enormous lead acid battery (like automobile batteries, the starter motor not the EV kind) arrays if they lost power. It was amazing to see the battery array discharge ammeter at 5000 amps when utility power went out.
- _joel 2y agosome ISP's still do (or did, last time I was in one), at least one I worked for a few years back. Had a room full of lead acid batteries on shelves and another with a big spinning wheel to smooth out the flow.
- kazinator 2y agoWhat? Silicone hardware generates heat. Neither silicone hardware nor tube hardware goes literally cold in a cold boot; just the power is cut for a moment, usually not long enough to lose a lot of heat.
- tass 2y agoI imagine these terms could have changed over time, but consider that a warm boot might have meant power off and on with these old computers. One difference is that the valves have more chance of burning out on a cold boot due to the temperature change.
- FredPret 2y agoIf Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse had a blog an a large stock of valves, it'd be close to this
- helf 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cellularmitosis 2y ago> 200 amps Something I’ve been curious about: is the current actually required for the thermionic effect, or just the heat? Could you lower the current requirement by thermally insulating the tubes?
- doe_eyes 2y agoThey are insulated really well - by vacuum! I'm actually surprised by the figure, though. A small tube requires about 300 mA at 6 V, and the trick is that you can connect the heaters in series instead of doing it all in parallel and pumping out a ton of amps at a very low voltage. They could've done 10 tubes in series at a reasonably safe 60 VDC, and they'd only need 20 amps. Back in that era, because both valves and relays were expensive, it was also common to use them more creatively than just constructing standard logic gates. You'd try to make a full adder or a flip-flop cell as an analog circuit, breaking the abstractions we're now used to - but also saving components.
- userbinator 2y agoand the trick is that you can connect the heaters in series instead of doing it all in parallel and pumping out a ton of amps at a very low voltage. Yes, this is what a lot of tube equipment did, as they are naturally high-voltage, low-current devices; here is one notable example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_American_Five https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_American_Five
- hilbert42 2y ago"They could've done 10 tubes in series at a reasonably safe 60 VDC, and they'd only need 20 amps." Thermionic vacuum tubes of this type usually have a specified maximum heater/cathode voltage rating which varies considerably according to design. Exceeding that rating and one risks a short between the heater and cathode. For these types of tubes heaters can safely operate up to 200V negative with respect to the cathode and about 100V positive. In my post I suggested substituting a tube that's more common in the West—the 12AT7, it has the advantage of having a 'tapped' heater which means it can be wired in parallel mode to operate at 6.3V or in series mode at 12.6V. At 12.6V the current would be halved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12AT7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12AT7 (pins 4 and 5, the tap on pin 9).
- nicetryguy 2y agoGreat for the winter! In all seriousness, amazing work. It's been tough to get tubes lately with the whole Ukraine situation sadly...
- orbat 2y ago> Every one agrees that the Turner Prize is much more than just a display of virtue signalling by the cultural elite, and I have decided to enter the Valve.Computer for the prize. Uh, what? Where did this sudden "virtue signaling" by the "cultural elite" stuff come from?
- Grimblewald 2y agoread the wiki page on the turner prize for more information, but the prize is rather controversial.
- bentt 2y ago"But most important of all, is to have a lovely wife, who knows you're daft as a brush, and that life together is brilliant." Hold out for the partner that cheers you on when you're doing what you love.
- naikrovek 2y ago> Hold out for the partner that cheers you on when you're doing what you love. If only it were that easy. Those kinds of people are few and far between. I’m almost 50 and I don’t think I’ve ever even met a woman who has actively encouraged me about a single thing. I’ve been married twice and have 4 daughters.
- anonzzzies 2y agoHence the hold out. I (50m) didn’t meet her until I was 30: until that time I dated and had few months relationships with a lot but it never felt quite right. Which became blatantly obvious when I met my wife.
- shiroiushi 2y agoSame here, but it took me much longer than that. Partners like this are out there, but in my experience they're somewhat rare, plus you still have to deal with all the other compatibility/attraction issues present in dating (i.e., you might meet someone who's really lovely and supportive, but they're just not romantically interested in you, or the two of you just don't make a great couple for some reason). One piece of advice I do have, though: hold out for someone who's a great partner who you really enjoy spending time with. Don't settle for someone who obviously isn't just because other people are pressuring you to "find someone".
- bentt 2y agoIt's not easy. I missed once but struck gold the second time. I'm sorry you haven't felt supported. It's really hard when you don't feel like you can just be yourself.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cududa 2y agoVery cool. Couldn’t get the pictures to load in any higher res. Would love to see more of the detail
- fanf2 2y agoVery hot.
- cobbzilla 2y agoThat’s some serious power draw. Truly impressive work!
- hilbert42 2y agoNow I'd truly love that computer as a talking point in say the rumpus room of my house, I could entertain my techie friends for hours. And it would take on extra importance in winter in keeping my house warm. I've not used 6N3P tubes before but looking at the circuit it seems to me a 12AT7 (an old favorite of mine) would substitute in that circuit almost without alteration. Then again with a tweak or two either the higher gain 12AX7 or its lower gain cousin the 12AU7 would do.
- salvagedcircuit 2y agoThis guy is the right kind of crazy. This is truly what the internet was made for: sharing our outlandish, over-the-top projects with others. Awesome writeup!
- mikewarot 2y agoHaving become accustomed to helping a friend fix old ham radio gear, 80 volts doesn't strike me as terribly dangerous. In some of this stuff, over half of the power supplies output was dumped as heat in resistive divider networks just to bias things correctly and ensure operation. The filaments worked out to less than a fifth of the load in many cases. Coming from a background of transistors and chips, it was wild to see so many 5 watt or more resistors in use.
- poulpy123 2y agoI'm now wondering if someone ever tried to build a small computer/calculator with steam valves
- Max-q 2y agoThis is so interesting! Quite often, I'm thinking about how a modern design would perform with tubes. Back in the 40s and 50s, digital computers were new. Much of the design was inherited from tabulating machines. When I study the early IBM machines, they seem very complex. When we learned more during the 60s, and ended up with microprocessors in the 70s, the design had been optimized a lot. So I have been wondering how a "modern" design would perform on tubes. This guy actually did it. What a fun project it must have been. Super interesting read. One detail in the introduction that made me a bit puzzled: "The Valve.Computer is an 8 bit computer, with the usual 12 bit address and data buses". In an 8 bit CPU, we had "the usual 16 bit address bus and the 8 bit address bus".
- lemonlime0x3C33 2y agoI was really hoping to see a picture of it in dim light with the valves glowing. Also I was not expecting to see such an adorable light house for ducks in the post. All around a great read :)
- ssdsa 2y agoIt's really cool to design all those NOR gates using thermionic valves, as shown in the schematics in the middle of the article. I just wonder if using two regular diodes in the input paths of each NOR gate and another diode in the output path is a little bit of "cheating", since diodes are somewhat newer technology than thermionic valves.