4 ms·

Throbac: THrifty Roman numeral BAckwards-looking Computer

23 points by rfarley04 2y ago

mmastrac 2y ago
Claude Shannon was the Fabrice Bellard of his time (or is it the other way around?). If he were around today, his projects would constantly be on HN. I am curious to know if there's a gene for these incredibly driven, very intelligent people that also _finish projects_.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Sesse__ 2y ago
  One of my lecturers at university (in information theory) once talked about the conference where he had met Shannon. Shannon was already a legend, and didn't show himself much, so there was a lot of whispering, and someone figured out it would be nice to have him deliver a speech at the dinner. The room was buzzing with anticipation when Shannon got up from his chair; what wisdom would he impart upon the crowd? “I haven't prepared anything to say. But I could always juggle a bit.” So he took out five balls and showed off his juggling. And that was that :-) (Interestingly, said lecturer also mentioned this Roman numeral computer; this is the only time I've seen an actual picture of it!)
schlauerfox 2y ago
How can they only have one low resolution picture and only pictures of the outside?? What display tech does it use? I can't imagine there are Roman Numeral Nixie tubes. https://www.kuenzigbooks.com/pages/books/28672/claude-e-shannon-elwood/throbac-i-typescript https://www.kuenzigbooks.com/pages/books/28672/claude-e-shan... I see Clear Lower, Clear KBD, Clear Upper. 7 'digits' display, but wow if anything needed a manual...
- roywiggins 2y ago
  The document is available on IEEExplore: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5311583 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5311583 I've reproduced here: https://pdfupload.io/docs/13f78f9d https://pdfupload.io/docs/13f78f9d
  - schlauerfox 2y ago
    Amazing, thank you for the link! There's an entire 'collected papers' on the IEEE website. I'm going to miss my college library accounts now i'm graduated!
- wolfgang42 2y ago
  After staring at the linked PDF for a while, I think the display was a collection of lightbulbs (presumably behind a mask plate), probably arranged something like this: Upper dial V XV (Quotient) III Lower dial LLLVV (Accumulator) XXX X IIII
  - schlauerfox 2y ago
    Yeah, it's a relay counter like a score motor in a pinball machine, but each rotor is different since the I is mod 5, the V is mod2 and the LX is mod 80, directly connected to the lights. The principles discussion is well done. Wow I love old tech documentation! I still don't have a good visualization of what the display 'dial' looks like
CoastalCoder 2y ago
So the name is a throwbackronym?
mokoshhydro 2y ago
Anybody has video of this thing at work?

23 points by rfarley04 2y ago

Claude Shannon was the Fabrice Bellard of his time (or is it the other way around?). If he were around today, his projects would constantly be on HN. I am curious to know if there's a gene for these incredibly driven, very intelligent people that also _finish projects_.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Sesse__ 2y ago
One of my lecturers at university (in information theory) once talked about the conference where he had met Shannon. Shannon was already a legend, and didn't show himself much, so there was a lot of whispering, and someone figured out it would be nice to have him deliver a speech at the dinner. The room was buzzing with anticipation when Shannon got up from his chair; what wisdom would he impart upon the crowd? “I haven't prepared anything to say. But I could always juggle a bit.” So he took out five balls and showed off his juggling. And that was that :-) (Interestingly, said lecturer also mentioned this Roman numeral computer; this is the only time I've seen an actual picture of it!)

schlauerfox 2y ago

How can they only have one low resolution picture and only pictures of the outside?? What display tech does it use? I can't imagine there are Roman Numeral Nixie tubes. https://www.kuenzigbooks.com/pages/books/28672/claude-e-shannon-elwood/throbac-i-typescript https://www.kuenzigbooks.com/pages/books/28672/claude-e-shan... I see Clear Lower, Clear KBD, Clear Upper. 7 'digits' display, but wow if anything needed a manual...

roywiggins 2y ago
The document is available on IEEExplore: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5311583 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5311583 I've reproduced here: https://pdfupload.io/docs/13f78f9d https://pdfupload.io/docs/13f78f9d
- schlauerfox 2y ago
  Amazing, thank you for the link! There's an entire 'collected papers' on the IEEE website. I'm going to miss my college library accounts now i'm graduated!
wolfgang42 2y ago
After staring at the linked PDF for a while, I think the display was a collection of lightbulbs (presumably behind a mask plate), probably arranged something like this: Upper dial V XV (Quotient) III Lower dial LLLVV (Accumulator) XXX X IIII
- schlauerfox 2y ago
  Yeah, it's a relay counter like a score motor in a pinball machine, but each rotor is different since the I is mod 5, the V is mod2 and the LX is mod 80, directly connected to the lights. The principles discussion is well done. Wow I love old tech documentation! I still don't have a good visualization of what the display 'dial' looks like

CoastalCoder 2y ago

So the name is a throwbackronym?

mokoshhydro 2y ago

Anybody has video of this thing at work?