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It’s hard not to marvel at the crimson glow of 1966 science.
Before the digital revolution converted complex workspaces into flat-screen monitors and unobtrusive computers, the control rooms of big experiments were the ultimate in analog awesome. Our Alternating Gradient Synchrotron—still accelerating particles here at Brookhaven after 53 years—featured just such an array of custom-built electronics.
Just look at all those knobs, dials, and oscilloscopes.
(via too--much--soul)
(via Retro Thing: The Smallest Analog Computer Ever Made?!)
From the early 1960s brochure: “Donner’s Model 3500 is a full-fledged analog computer weighing just 28 lbs. Designed for engineers, educators and scientists, it can be used to study almost any physical system that can be described by differential equations. It can be operated on desk tops and benches by anyone who can run a slide rule. The standard 3500 contains 10 amplifiers, stabilized or unstabilized as the user chooses. The computer performs accurately with 1% or 0.1% computing components, and is furnished ready-to-work for $1850, depending upon specific equipment desired.”
(via Retro Thing: 1984: Finally, An East German Home Computer)
…That’s where the Robotron Z1013 comes in. Once you got past the rustic presentation, it was a reasonably powerful home or educational machine. The processor was initially a Z80 clone running at 1MHz, with a 2K ROM bootloader, 16K RAM, monochrome video output and a cassette tape interface for program storage…
(by x-ray delta one)
from Family Computing magazine, February 1984
(par retro-space)
