Ferranti Logical Computor (1951)

[Alexis]

On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:49:27 am Graham Toal wrote:
> Here's a very interesting 1951 paper on the construction of a complex
> boolean logic unit using relays.  It's contemporary with the more
> better-known Kalin-Burkhart machine.
>
> http://history.dcs.ed.ac.uk/archive/docs/mechanized_reasoning_screenres.pdf
>
> This is the first time this paper has been put online.  I received it
> as a photocopy of the original from J B Smith's sister.
>
> This is at screen resolution.  I'll post a higher-res version later
> for printing.  (I had to clean up the paper considerably from the
> original using Photoshop.)
>
> If you're interested in the history of logic machines, you should also
> look for machines by Alfred Smee (1851), and William Stanley Jevons
> (1870)
>
>
> Graham
> References:
>  http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&channel=2PSP&q=Kalin-Burkhart
> 
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=active&q=%22mechanized+reasoning%22
>+McCallum+Smith


Now THIS is interesting! I love the idea of a computer that's actually 
designed to compute, as opposed to playing games on or getting annoyed at.

If you have any more documents like it I'd love to hear about them. Do you 
have anything about analogue computing?

Thanks,

Alexis.