What are the really unusual or weird computers?

[Bob Bradlee]

Then there was the 1940's vintage links trainer I worked on when at the Navy TD school Millingon Tn. Now 
that was a hoot working on that old thing. But it was far from a computer, but it did spin around and buck 
up and down based on control movements and could simulate a stall for the controled crashes it would 
accept as a landing. It did a good job of plotting your ground movement on a big chart table and the 
instructor could dial in a cross wind. We all had to go through ground school using it, before we were 
allowed to work on it.

Then the USMC assigned me to an F4j Phantom flight sym in Beaufort SC, and other than a small TTL 
upgrade for the ECM and stand off weapons stuff, it was all Analog! Even the RIO's backseat display was 
connected to a a ntsc vodeo camera flying over a 30" sq hunk of microfilm where altitude controled the 
camera zoom to keep the image in scale, and ground speed servos moved the camera. All engine and 
flight charictics were controled by 6L6 tube driven servo motors, mechanically connect to gear boxes 
driving banks of 10 to 50 turn helopots, to kept it in the air so to speek. We had had monthly calibration 
partys when we changed the driver tubes on a rotation basis. But it worked and flew well.

till later
Bob