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Geniac
Geniac was an educational toy sold as a mechanical computer designed and marketed by Edmund Berkeley, with Oliver Garfield from 1955 to 1958, but with Garfield continuing without Berkeley through the 1960s. The name stood for "Genius Almost-automatic Computer" but suggests a portmanteau of genius and ENIAC (the first fully electronic general-purpose computer). Construction The Geniac kit consisted of a wedge-shaped case, a console panel, and nearly 400 other parts available for assembly. It was powered by a flashlight battery. Basically a rotary switch construction set, the Geniac contained six perforated masonite disks, into the back of which brass jumpers could be inserted. The jumpers made electrical connections between slotted brass bolt heads sitting out from the similarly perforated masonite back panel. To the bolts were attached wires behind the panel. The circuit comprised a battery, such wires from it to, and between, switch positions, wires from the switches to indica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Educational Toys
Educational toys (sometimes also called "instructive toys") are objects of play, generally designed for children. Educational Toys help with motivation, helping kids use their imagination while still pulling in the real world. These toys are important tools that offer news ways for kids to interact and stimulate learning. They are often intended to meet an educational purpose such as helping a child develop a particular skill or teaching a child about a particular subject. They often simplify, miniaturize, or even model activities and objects used by adults. Although children are constantly interacting with and learning about the world, many of the objects they interact with and learn from are not toys. Toys are generally considered to be specifically built for children's use. A child might play with and learn from a rock or a stick, but it would not be considered an educational toy because 1) it is a natural object, not a designed one, and 2) it has no expected educational ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brainiac (character)
Brainiac is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino, and debuted in ''Action Comics'' #242 (July 10, 1958). He has since endured as one of Superman's greatest List of Superman enemies, enemies. The character's name is a portmanteau of the words ''brain'' and ''maniac''. In his comic book appearances, Brainiac is commonly depicted as a Superintelligence, superintelligent Android (robot), android or cyborg from the planet Coluan, Colu who is obsessed with collecting all knowledge in the known universe. He travels the galaxy and shrinks cities to bottle size for preservation on his skull-shaped spaceship before destroying their source planets, believing the knowledge he acquires to be most valuable if he alone possesses it. Among these shrunken cities is Kandor (comics), Kandor, the capital of Superman's home planet Krypton (comics), Krypton, and Brainiac is even responsible for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WDR Paper Computer
The WDR paper computer or Know-how Computer is an educational model of a computer consisting only of a pen, a sheet of paper, and individual matches in the most simple case. This allows anyone interested to learn how to program without having an electronic computer at their disposal. The paper computer was created in the early 1980s when computer access was not yet widespread in Germany, to allow people to familiarize themselves with basic computer operation and assembly-like programming languages. It was distributed in over copies and at its time belonged to the computers with the widest circulation. The Know-how Computer was developed by and Ulrich Rohde and was first presented in the television program WDR Computerclub (broadcast by Westdeutscher Rundfunk) in 1983. It was also published in German computer magazines mc and . The original printed version of the paper computer has up to 21 lines of code on the left and eight registers on the right, which are represented a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digi-Comp II
The Digi-Comp II was a toy computer invented by John "Jack" Thomas Godfrey (1924–2009) in 1965 and manufactured by E.S.R., Inc. in the late 1960s, that used marbles rolling down a ramp to perform basic calculations. Description A two-level masonite platform with blue plastic guides served as the medium for a supply of marbles that rolled down an inclined plane, moving plastic cams as they went. The red plastic cams played the part of flip-flops in an electronic computer - as a marble passed one of the cams, it would flip the cam around - in one position, the cam would allow the marble to pass in one direction, in the other position, it would cause the marble to drop through a hole and roll to the collection of marbles at the bottom of the machine. The original Digi-Comp II platform measured . The Digi-Comp II was not programmable, unlike the Digi-Comp I, an earlier offering in the E.S.R. product line that used an assortment of plastic slides, tubes, and bent metal wires ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digi-Comp I
The Digi-Comp I is a functioning, mechanical digital computer sold in kit form. It was originally manufactured from polystyrene parts by E.S.R., Inc. starting in 1963 and sold as an educational toy for US$4.99 (). The Digi-Comp I has been referred to as the first home computer. A successor, the Digi-Comp II, is not programmable, but in effect a visible calculator. A two-level Masonite platform with guides serves as the medium for a supply of marbles that rolled down an inclined plane, moving plastic cams as they fell. Operation The Digi-Comp I contains three mechanical flip-flops, providing an ability to connect them together in a programmable way using thin vertical wires that are either pushed, or blocked from moving, by a number of cylindrical pegs. The whole arrangement is "clocked" by moving a lever back and forth. Different configurations of these cylinders cause the Digi-Comp to compute different Boolean logic operations. With a three binary digit (3-bit) readout of the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otis King's Patent Calculator
Otis Carter Formby King (1876–1944) was an electrical engineer in London who invented and produced a cylindrical slide rule with helical scales, primarily for business uses initially. The product was named Otis King's Patent Calculator, and was manufactured and sold by Carbic Ltd. in London from about 1922 to about 1972. With a log-scale decade length of 66 inches, the Otis King calculator should be about a full digit more accurate than a 6-inch pocket slide rule. But due to inaccuracies in tic-mark placement, some portions of its scales will read off by more than they should. For example, a reading of 4.630 might represent an answer of 4.632, or almost one part in 2000 error, when it should be accurate to one part in 6000 (66"/6000 = 0.011" estimated interpolation accuracy). The Geniac brand cylindrical slide rule sold by Oliver Garfield Company in New York was initially a relabelled Otis King; Garfield later made his own, probably unauthorized version of the Otis Kin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Berkeley
Edmund Callis Berkeley (March 21, 1909 – March 7, 1988) was an American computer scientist who co-founded the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1947. His 1949 book ''Giant Brains, or Machines That Think'' popularized cognitive images of early computers. He was also a social activist who worked to achieve conditions that might minimize the threat of nuclear war. Biography Berkeley attended St. Bernard's School and Phillips Exeter Academy. He received a BA in Mathematics and Logic from Harvard in 1930. He pursued a career as an insurance actuary at Prudential Insurance from 1934–1948, except for service in the United States Navy during World War II. Berkeley saw George Stibitz's calculator at Bell Laboratories in 1939, and the Harvard Mark I in 1942. In November 1946 he drafted a specification for "Sequence Controlled Calculators for the Prudential", which led to signing a contract with the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in 1947 for one of the first UNI ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jumper (computing)
In electronics and particularly computing, a jumper is a short length of conductor used to close, open or bypass part of an electronic circuit. They are typically used to set up or configure printed circuit boards, such as the motherboards of computers. The process of setting a jumper is often called strapping. A strapping option is a hardware configuration setting usually sensed only during power-up or bootstrapping of a device (or even a single chip). Design Jumper pins (points to be connected by the jumper) are arranged in groups called ''jumper blocks'', each group having at least one pair of contact points. An appropriately sized conductive sleeve itself called a jumper, or more technically, a shunt (electrical), shunt jumper, is slipped over the pins to complete the circuit. A two-pin jumper only allows to choose between two Boolean states, whereas a three-pin jumper allows to select between three states. Jumpers must be electrically electrical conductor, conducting; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galaxy Science Fiction
''Galaxy Science Fiction'' was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made ''Galaxy'' the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology. Gold published many notable stories during his tenure, including Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman", later expanded as ''Fahrenheit 451''; Robert A. Heinlein's ''The Puppet Masters''; and Alfred Bester's '' The Demolished Man''. In 1952, the magazine was acquired by Robert Guinn, its printer. By the late 1950s, Frederik Pohl was helping Gold with most aspects of the magazine's production. When Gold's health worsened, Pohl took over as editor, starting officially at the end of 1961, though he had been doing the majority of the production work for some time. Under Pohl ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mechanical Computers
A mechanical computer is a computer built from mechanical components such as levers and gears rather than electronic components. The most common examples are adding machines and mechanical counters, which use the turning of gears to increment output displays. More complex examples could carry out multiplication and division—Friden used a moving head which paused at each column—and even differential analysis. One model, the Ascota 170 accounting machine sold in the 1960s, calculated square roots. Mechanical computers reached their zenith during World War II, when they formed the basis of complex bombsights including the Norden, as well as the similar devices for ship computations such as the US Torpedo Data Computer or British Admiralty Fire Control Table. Noteworthy are mechanical flight instruments for early spacecraft, which provided their computed output not in the form of digits, but through the displacements of indicator surfaces. From Yuri Gagarin's first spacefli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer
A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as Computer program, ''programs'', which enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. The term computer system may refer to a nominally complete computer that includes the Computer hardware, hardware, operating system, software, and peripheral equipment needed and used for full operation; or to a group of computers that are linked and function together, such as a computer network or computer cluster. A broad range of Programmable logic controller, industrial and Consumer electronics, consumer products use computers as control systems, including simple special-purpose devices like microwave ovens and remote controls, and factory devices like industrial robots. Computers are at the core of general-purpose devices ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
