@@M4nusky I forget how this guy works, but being an industrial control design it clearly has an output bit, but likely an addressable outbit bit; or a shift register or something. Theres got to be a way to slip in a conditional bell, there has to be :)
It's remarkable that you are cataloging a process to bring these culturally significant machines back to life. In the future this content will be even more valuable than it is today. Nice work .
I've seen much nastier bodges on factory-built circuits. These look like it was designed to have breakout boards, because it was done so cleanly and repetition legitimizes.
Can't believe how close to the finish line you are! I remember when you pubished your first video about the VTC and got mesmerized and went around telling all of my colleagues about this crazy guy from Texas trying to make a vacuum tube computer out of tubes running at a fraction of their nominal voltage... Keep up the good work, the goal is in sight!
As an old, long retired machinist it tickles me to see punched paper tape running. Early CNC machines ran programs from tape and may of them were still in service into the 1980s.
14:54 Timing of bits: I guess this is due to the angle of the paper tape…? Maybe the guiding for it should extend to the «passive» rollers, as I see it flex somewhat, more downwards than up. The tape is fine «flapping» or bending perpendicular to the surface, not entirely so by its top-bottom «2D» axis, which is very stiff by default… Sorry for barging in, my experience is with magnetic tape devices, not paper ditto. Love your work, and the knowledge emerging from it…! 💛 (Edit, of course the tape reader is now vertical…😅 Moots my points a fair bit (bad pun)…)
Seems to me you might want to put some sort of light diffuser between the bulbs and the paper tape so it's more diffuse and not getting "hot spots" where the diodes in line with the filament not getting more light than the ones that are off-aligned. That should help with getting the light more uniform across the diodes.
Terribly pleased to hear that you still love this project and that vacuum tubes have a future on this channel! You should be proud of the work done here! Great job! Can't wait for more!
What I found most interesting, after the technical aspects, is the presence of a pet rabbit. My mother had a pet rabbit that I babysat once. I let it roam my house and it quickly chewed through a 120V electrical cord to a lamp. Surprisingly that didn't kill the rabbit but it was amazing watching it jump a meter in response to the current flowing through its jaw. So I'm surprised to see someone with lots of unshielded electrical wiring have a pet rabbit.
Perhaps not all viewers know how much work this is. As someone who makes quite a few little boxed Arduino projects, ABS hence knows that one like circuit board or switch panel can take an entire night to do, I must say I admire your fortitude. Keep it up!!
Speaking of the Bendix, you should look into the matching DDA (Digital Differential Analyzer) made by the company for the G15. It's an impressive piece of kit, designed for scientific purposes in an era when real-time computation was done by analog computers (a theme you should also touch on, it's fascinating!) If you want a little info, I can provide some literature! Wondrous work on the tape reader, but as others pointed out I fear that the tape might slip out in such orientation. We shall see once you test it mounted on the wall
I really want to understand how that DDA works. It’s amazingly powerful for such a relatively small number of tubes. I (wrongly) assumed it must be analog.
@@markmuir7338 I had written a comment with useful links, but it was automatically deleted. Try to search for "digital differential analyzer bendix pdf" and click on the Bitsavers result, it gives a good background on DDAs as it was a rather obscure tech even in its prime. Of course, it also helps that is made by bendix. If you'd like to search for info on purely analog computation, look no further than the Analog Museum (Das Analogrechnermusem), which I personally visited. It's a private collection, the biggest in the world, and the professor mantaining them is the leading expert in this field. Hoping that David will one day do a couple of episodes on analog computing! I'll give him as much info as he needs, as I love the topic and I studied it for a couple of years myself.
@@markmuir7338 I see, probably it's the links I pasted in the comment the first time. BTW, searching for DDA Bendix on the net gives you a bitsavers doc. start there Hope this comment stays up
IMSAI Guy was just looking at a few of those photodiodes a couple days ago, wondering what they were and what use they had. There were many comments saying talk to Usagi Electric!
Considering the space you left for the paper tape reader and the actual size of the paper tape reader... well, let's say "it's a miracle or modern miniaturisation!" 😋 The advantage with some "stupid" mistakes is that they're really easy to fix. 😀
Happy days! Looking forward to the next instalment -> interfacing the reader to the CPU is likely to be an "interesting things are happening" scenario!
If the first program to execute in UE-1 isn´t of a "Hellorld" kind, I am going to be very disappointed. Well, not really, having the UE-1 working as intended will be amazing and very satisfying but I would still feel as if it was a missing opportunity.
Excellent. Dare I say, "Well done!" Of the channels I'm subscribed to it's the sight of a new video from this one that makes me smile the most. Many thanks. PS: It occurs to me the UE1 could be about as close to a physical pure Turing machine as one can get. Correct?
I'd try another kind of light bulb where the filament's position in relation to the diode is more consistent, something like a C5W (the common bulb for license plates), and position it with the filament in line with the holes. Might make it easier to adjust.
In the mid 80s the REMEX paper tape readers used on our Excellon CNC machines used the same type of lamp. Commonly called a 'Festoon' in the UK. They also had a cylinder of some plastic material used as a lens to concentrate and direct the light onto the photodiodes
it is really coming along. Awesome job on both the Bendix and the UE-1! and as Bob Ross used to say "We don't make mistakes..... we just have happy little accidents"
Pretty awesome find with the reader. You can’t be perfect all the time. Most people would have edited that out. Thanks for the videos. Looking forward to the next.
1-bit processor with 8 bits of RAM ... I was in the land of luxury with my first computer: Nascom 1 with 2.5 MHz Z80, 960 bytes of usable RAM plus 1K of video RAM displaying 48x16 text on TV and audio tape for storage. :)
Talking about alignment - the tape was not running in a rectangular direction whilst the tape reader was sitting on the desk. Lets say its 10° - then your bit 0 is noticeable shifted from your bit 7.
I hope your halt instruction also cuts power to the optical reader lightbulbs, or you might obtain a more visceral appreciation of the phrase "Halt and Catch Fire".
You make an interesting point about working on vintage computers. The amount of repetition started out very high, with individual circuits per bit all around, but come the 1970s and '80s, increasing numbers of integrated circuits handle groups of 4, 8, or even 16 bits, and the hardware assembler's job got way easier! Of course, DRAM chips continued to add redundancy through the early '80s. These days, you get treats like Grant Searle's 6-chip 6809 microcomputer for serial terminals.
Bendix did have a bunch of analog computers, even saw they did some avionics computers for the first jets... neat stuff combining pneumatics, mechanics (gear calculators) and synchros (electric motors which transfer positional state without the use electronics - just using the phase of a three phase motor) to show values from the computer on the instrument panel. I did some work as a youth with pneumatic computers that used air signals and balancing forces to control marine steam systems (analog industrial computers.) fun times. Happy Sunday.
The clock bit doesn't have to be in line with the data bits. It can be somewhere earlier or later on the tape. A variable one shot delay can allow you to twist a knob to tweak the timing. By putting the clock somewhere else you can optimize the mounting to only read the clock hole reliably.
If you change the Aquire mode from Normal to High Res you will get much clearer traces on the screen. Now the traces are a bit wide, indicating that the signals are noisy. In High Res mode the line will be more narrow as the scope samples the signals many more times and get an average in each pixel.
I don't know nothing about tubes, but what you could use instead of an amplifier stage is a comperator or schmitt-trigger. You would still need those variable resistors, but it would be much easier to tune and would be stable for a long time. I will copy must of your PTR at some point because I'm building my on breadboard computer like Ben Eater did, but I want it to be able to run from tape, too. It's just that more tangiable that way!
@mlann2333 I'm from the UK and have always used metric! I can use Imperial as well but not as good, although it gets worse when you grab a spanner and it's a Whitworth size😁
Only three countries still officially use imperial and the US version isn't even consistent with the obsolete UK version. "Feel the power of the dark side" as it fades to nothing and Metric takes over to rule the entire Universe! MWAHAHAHAHA! 🤣🤣🤣
I just realized that when I do my wall art of electromechanical stuff clickety clacking, I should probably have you cut a few circuit boards for it on your cnc machine. haha
The data is coming over as an AC signal. Think about adding a capacitor in the circuit. Also put a clampping diode, as all signals go from "Black" (paper) to sometimes a hole and back to Black. This will maximize the signal, and always "zero" it on the Black. A diffuser might help you distribute the light better. Last, a capstan with a large mass on it might help the "slipping" by having the paper move at a more stable speed. Capstan could be powered by the movement of the tape.
The capstan and pinch roller should be larger than the tape so that they project beyond the top and bottom of the tape. This ensures that the capstan and pinch roller make contact so that one drives the other which helps to prevent slippage. This is how it was done for magnetic tape recording. No point in reinventing the wheel when tried-and-true already exists. 😁
It's quite amusing to see yourself controlling a 1-bit circuit or a tube shift register with an oscilloscope that contains billions of transistors and a computing power millions of times greater than your circuit. It's exciting for an old electronics engineer like me. I followed and survived the time of tubes, then germanium transistors, then TTL logic and finally the Raspberry 4. Tubes were a lot of fun! and easy to use. C'est assez amusant de vous voir controler un montage 1 bit ou un registre à décalage à tubes avec un oscilloscope qui contient des milliards de transistors et une puissance informatique des millions de fois plus grande que votre montage . C'est passionnant pour un viel électronicien comme moi. J'ai suivi et survéçu au temps des tubes, puis des transistors germanium, puis à la logique TTL et enfin au Raspberry 4. Les tubes , c'était très amusants ! et facile à utiliser.
It would be cool to use the remaining open space on the board for the paper tape. Have it route around everything in a really cool loop. Just a thought!
I'm not sure if it would be too much stress for the paper tape, or perhaps too much friction for the feed motor, but I think it would be a good idea in the future to make a holder for the paper tape loop similar to an 8 track cart, so you can have long tape loops without it hanging down into the tubes below. or perhaps just have it loose in an acrylic box like a looping tape machine.
Having to bias each tube individually is just part of life if you repair guitar amplifiers. I guess you were hoping to make the analog-to-digital converter more of a fixed unit, but if you can't do that with six tubes in a guitar amp, I'm not at all surprised it doesn't work here either with 16 tubes. (Also, even if it did work, it would probably bite you the first time you install a poorly matched tube.) The "bodge boards" look fine though, they wouldn't look out of place even on a factory-built PCB.
Damn, I really hope you are removing that oxidation on the leads of the photo diodes! You can use a pencil eraser, or a fiberglass pencil to clean it off before soldering!
if you want to be sporty, you can use a serial cable to run the vacuum tube computer directly. yep using another computer terminal as the tape reader input.
I thought punch strips were a relic from the past. However, I have discovered punched parking tickets in the local parking garage! Now, of course, I'm curious to see if I can reverse engineer them.
Hey, might get drowned out. But you know how at 9:11 you were highlighting the bits of the schematic? It might help a lot of people (like me) for you to match highlights on the physical tech some too! Easier to follow along if we know what's what and don't know all the jargon.
Two questions: 1. For those of us that cannot afford a scope like you have, what would be a really good 4 channel scope for under $1k? 2. If you pet a rabbit while it is asleep, is there a chance you could scare it and it would bite you?
My thought as well. If I have to do more than two or three of any 'fiddly work', I take a minute to get them out and devise a 'jig' to hold things. Easier in the long run and neater product.
you should do the 6502 as a vaccum-tube "chip". that would be epic. and then you remove the 6502 from a NES and connect your vaccum-tube version to play games
Imagine you get to be the man who needs the foresight to hand build an inverting amplifier and a cathode follower buffer in the last days of the year 2024!!
The UE-1 is completely unusable, a total travesty - it has no bell. Please PLEASE David, add a bell, somehow.
Totally worth sacrificing a bit of ram for a bell! "7 bits ought to be enough for anyone" :D
Bonus points if it's a bell from a pinball machine.
@@M4nusky I forget how this guy works, but being an industrial control design it clearly has an output bit, but likely an addressable outbit bit; or a shift register or something. Theres got to be a way to slip in a conditional bell, there has to be :)
Maybe a horn, of sorts??
@@lewsdiod A car horn from one of his antique cars! Bonus!
It's remarkable that you are cataloging a process to bring these culturally significant machines back to life. In the future this content will be even more valuable than it is today. Nice work .
One man's bodge is another man's CNC cut daughter board.
I've seen much nastier bodges on factory-built circuits. These look like it was designed to have breakout boards, because it was done so cleanly and repetition legitimizes.
@@mal2ksc Repetition legitimizes
I love the specificity of this comment.
Repetition legitimizes
It’s beginning to look a lot like Onebitmas 🎄
For bodges, those really are clean bodges, no dead bug style wiring there!
Can't believe how close to the finish line you are! I remember when you pubished your first video about the VTC and got mesmerized and went around telling all of my colleagues about this crazy guy from Texas trying to make a vacuum tube computer out of tubes running at a fraction of their nominal voltage... Keep up the good work, the goal is in sight!
As an old, long retired machinist it tickles me to see punched paper tape running. Early CNC machines ran programs from tape and may of them were still in service into the 1980s.
Bodges and revisions are what make homebrew computers look as beautiful as they do. Another great step forward for the UE1
UE1 is what brought me to this channel. The fact someone has the nerve to create such a thing as this just makes me happy.
14:54 Timing of bits: I guess this is due to the angle of the paper tape…? Maybe the guiding for it should extend to the «passive» rollers, as I see it flex somewhat, more downwards than up.
The tape is fine «flapping» or bending perpendicular to the surface, not entirely so by its top-bottom «2D» axis, which is very stiff by default…
Sorry for barging in, my experience is with magnetic tape devices, not paper ditto. Love your work, and the knowledge emerging from it…! 💛
(Edit, of course the tape reader is now vertical…😅 Moots my points a fair bit (bad pun)…)
Seems to me you might want to put some sort of light diffuser between the bulbs and the paper tape so it's more diffuse and not getting "hot spots" where the diodes in line with the filament not getting more light than the ones that are off-aligned. That should help with getting the light more uniform across the diodes.
Micro-sized light bulbs would also be a consideration, one for each bit. There were/are plenty made in sufficiently small packages.
I was thinking polarized light and filters to reduce ambient interference.
Terribly pleased to hear that you still love this project and that vacuum tubes have a future on this channel!
You should be proud of the work done here!
Great job! Can't wait for more!
not gonna lie, the rapid progress on these two is very exciting. Its like witnessing 2 background characters get an arc for the first time.
babe wake up, new vacuum computer episode
This is the most awesome journey into ancient computing I've ever seen.
The UE1-PTR looks awesome mounted to the board.
(PTR = Paper Tape Reader)
What I found most interesting, after the technical aspects, is the presence of a pet rabbit. My mother had a pet rabbit that I babysat once. I let it roam my house and it quickly chewed through a 120V electrical cord to a lamp. Surprisingly that didn't kill the rabbit but it was amazing watching it jump a meter in response to the current flowing through its jaw. So I'm surprised to see someone with lots of unshielded electrical wiring have a pet rabbit.
Perhaps not all viewers know how much work this is. As someone who makes quite a few little boxed Arduino projects, ABS hence knows that one like circuit board or switch panel can take an entire night to do, I must say I admire your fortitude. Keep it up!!
Speaking of the Bendix, you should look into the matching DDA (Digital Differential Analyzer) made by the company for the G15. It's an impressive piece of kit, designed for scientific purposes in an era when real-time computation was done by analog computers (a theme you should also touch on, it's fascinating!)
If you want a little info, I can provide some literature!
Wondrous work on the tape reader, but as others pointed out I fear that the tape might slip out in such orientation. We shall see once you test it mounted on the wall
I really want to understand how that DDA works. It’s amazingly powerful for such a relatively small number of tubes. I (wrongly) assumed it must be analog.
@@markmuir7338 I had written a comment with useful links, but it was automatically deleted.
Try to search for "digital differential analyzer bendix pdf" and click on the Bitsavers result, it gives a good background on DDAs as it was a rather obscure tech even in its prime. Of course, it also helps that is made by bendix.
If you'd like to search for info on purely analog computation, look no further than the Analog Museum (Das Analogrechnermusem), which I personally visited. It's a private collection, the biggest in the world, and the professor mantaining them is the leading expert in this field.
Hoping that David will one day do a couple of episodes on analog computing! I'll give him as much info as he needs, as I love the topic and I studied it for a couple of years myself.
@@markmuir7338 I tried replying you twice, but YT deletes my comment somehow? Did you get any more replies?
@willjackson1955I don’t see any of your replies besides the one asking if I’d seen them. The algorithm doesn’t want me to learn how the DDA works…
@@markmuir7338 I see, probably it's the links I pasted in the comment the first time.
BTW, searching for DDA Bendix on the net gives you a bitsavers doc. start there
Hope this comment stays up
IMSAI Guy was just looking at a few of those photodiodes a couple days ago, wondering what they were and what use they had.
There were many comments saying talk to Usagi Electric!
Considering the space you left for the paper tape reader and the actual size of the paper tape reader... well, let's say "it's a miracle or modern miniaturisation!" 😋
The advantage with some "stupid" mistakes is that they're really easy to fix. 😀
Happy days! Looking forward to the next instalment -> interfacing the reader to the CPU is likely to be an "interesting things are happening" scenario!
any "bodge" that elegant is not really a bodge, its an evolved feature!
If the first program to execute in UE-1 isn´t of a "Hellorld" kind, I am going to be very disappointed.
Well, not really, having the UE-1 working as intended will be amazing and very satisfying but I would still feel as if it was a missing opportunity.
Double cheeked up
ON A THURSDAY AFTERNOON
I'm enjoying watching your progress. Its so exciting coming to the conclusion.
It's so cool to look at. You could probably sell it as an art piece for millions of dollars.
Excellent. Dare I say, "Well done!"
Of the channels I'm subscribed to it's the sight of a new video from this one that makes me smile the most.
Many thanks.
PS: It occurs to me the UE1 could be about as close to a physical pure Turing machine as one can get. Correct?
Don't forget to add a bell to it!
"perfectly misaligned" is now my new favorite expression.
I'd try another kind of light bulb where the filament's position in relation to the diode is more consistent, something like a C5W (the common bulb for license plates), and position it with the filament in line with the holes. Might make it easier to adjust.
or what about a reflector, like a projector bub or an MR16 spotlight?
In the mid 80s the REMEX paper tape readers used on our Excellon CNC machines used the same type of lamp. Commonly called a 'Festoon' in the UK. They also had a cylinder of some plastic material used as a lens to concentrate and direct the light onto the photodiodes
it is really coming along. Awesome job on both the Bendix and the UE-1!
and as Bob Ross used to say "We don't make mistakes..... we just have happy little accidents"
Pretty awesome find with the reader. You can’t be perfect all the time. Most people would have edited that out. Thanks for the videos. Looking forward to the next.
1-bit processor with 8 bits of RAM ... I was in the land of luxury with my first computer:
Nascom 1 with 2.5 MHz Z80, 960 bytes of usable RAM plus 1K of video RAM displaying 48x16 text on TV and audio tape for storage. :)
Even your bodges are elegant. 😊
Хорошее решение с резисторами. Выглядит отлично.
Love this channel! My god so much work. Please keep making more!
Let me know if you need a few tubes, and what tubes you may need, I may have some that I can send you.
Loving all your videos! BUT this project here is why I joined! Happy to see it being worked on again! LOVE IT!
The paper tape reader mounted inside is looking fantastic!
Talking about alignment - the tape was not running in a rectangular direction whilst the tape reader was sitting on the desk.
Lets say its 10° - then your bit 0 is noticeable shifted from your bit 7.
6:23 i have a pair of pliers just like that too, and wouldn't you know it. They're in my "electronics" box. :)) Oh man, that's too funny to me.
Fantastic work man, almost there!
Desperately needs status neons for the individual tape buffers for optimum derblinkenliten
So cool
I hope your halt instruction also cuts power to the optical reader lightbulbs, or you might obtain a more visceral appreciation of the phrase "Halt and Catch Fire".
Came for the tape reader update, and stayed for the cute and relaxing sleeping bunny... ;-)
You make an interesting point about working on vintage computers. The amount of repetition started out very high, with individual circuits per bit all around, but come the 1970s and '80s, increasing numbers of integrated circuits handle groups of 4, 8, or even 16 bits, and the hardware assembler's job got way easier! Of course, DRAM chips continued to add redundancy through the early '80s. These days, you get treats like Grant Searle's 6-chip 6809 microcomputer for serial terminals.
Bendix did have a bunch of analog computers, even saw they did some avionics computers for the first jets... neat stuff combining pneumatics, mechanics (gear calculators) and synchros (electric motors which transfer positional state without the use electronics - just using the phase of a three phase motor) to show values from the computer on the instrument panel. I did some work as a youth with pneumatic computers that used air signals and balancing forces to control marine steam systems (analog industrial computers.) fun times. Happy Sunday.
This is so exciting to watch! The whole thing looks cool asf.
That was A Quick Install, Nice, Now I will Wags and Wait for More.. Now Let's Get This UE-1 Done...
@18:24 Bunny! So cute
One whole byte of memory!
The clock bit doesn't have to be in line with the data bits. It can be somewhere earlier or later on the tape. A variable one shot delay can allow you to twist a knob to tweak the timing. By putting the clock somewhere else you can optimize the mounting to only read the clock hole reliably.
okay it's really coming together now!!!!!
Nice step along the way. Really good work!
If you change the Aquire mode from Normal to High Res you will get much clearer traces on the screen.
Now the traces are a bit wide, indicating that the signals are noisy.
In High Res mode the line will be more narrow as the scope samples the signals many more times and get an average in each pixel.
Hooray, your nearing the end of your quest. 🤠🎉
I understand about 20% of what you are saying 😁, great content though.
Looking good!
Well that's a good ending to a rough workday, love your work m8
I probably would've gone with hot gluing some regular potentiometers on and soldering wires, but your solution is a lot neater.
An awesome lesson in troubleshooting one's own project :)
You are working yourself to the bone
Looking forward to seeing what kind of tape loading system you build.
Oh the old off-by-1 error strikes again
Usually this happens in for-loops.
I don't know nothing about tubes, but what you could use instead of an amplifier stage is a comperator or schmitt-trigger. You would still need those variable resistors, but it would be much easier to tune and would be stable for a long time.
I will copy must of your PTR at some point because I'm building my on breadboard computer like Ben Eater did, but I want it to be able to run from tape, too. It's just that more tangiable that way!
One of my absoloute favourite YT channels just uploaded, awesome but hang on.... using a metric tape measure? 🤣
The only ones that use imperial here in Europe are the Brits, they can't seem to let it go 😅
@mlann2333 I'm from the UK and have always used metric! I can use Imperial as well but not as good, although it gets worse when you grab a spanner and it's a Whitworth size😁
Only three countries still officially use imperial and the US version isn't even consistent with the obsolete UK version.
"Feel the power of the dark side" as it fades to nothing and Metric takes over to rule the entire Universe!
MWAHAHAHAHA! 🤣🤣🤣
the metric system rules!!!
I just realized that when I do my wall art of electromechanical stuff clickety clacking, I should probably have you cut a few circuit boards for it on your cnc machine. haha
The data is coming over as an AC signal.
Think about adding a capacitor in the circuit. Also put a clampping diode, as all signals go from "Black" (paper) to sometimes a hole and back to Black.
This will maximize the signal, and always "zero" it on the Black.
A diffuser might help you distribute the light better.
Last, a capstan with a large mass on it might help the "slipping" by having the paper move at a more stable speed. Capstan could be powered by the movement of the tape.
The capstan and pinch roller should be larger than the tape so that they project beyond the top and bottom of the tape. This ensures that the capstan and pinch roller make contact so that one drives the other which helps to prevent slippage. This is how it was done for magnetic tape recording. No point in reinventing the wheel when tried-and-true already exists. 😁
Just a thought for down the road. Most LEDs can be used as photo diodes if wired correctly. Infrared diodes are especially sensitive.
Also any bipolar junction transistor. I've made photo couplers from an LED, a 2N2222 and some black heat shrink tubing.
Great stuff!
It's quite amusing to see yourself controlling a 1-bit circuit or a tube shift register with an oscilloscope that contains billions of transistors and a computing power millions of times greater than your circuit.
It's exciting for an old electronics engineer like me.
I followed and survived the time of tubes, then germanium transistors, then TTL logic and finally the Raspberry 4.
Tubes were a lot of fun! and easy to use.
C'est assez amusant de vous voir controler un montage 1 bit ou un registre à décalage à tubes avec un oscilloscope qui contient des milliards de transistors et une puissance informatique des millions de fois plus grande que votre montage .
C'est passionnant pour un viel électronicien comme moi.
J'ai suivi et survéçu au temps des tubes, puis des transistors germanium, puis à la logique TTL et enfin au Raspberry 4.
Les tubes , c'était très amusants ! et facile à utiliser.
Great job
It would be cool to use the remaining open space on the board for the paper tape. Have it route around everything in a really cool loop. Just a thought!
I'm not sure if it would be too much stress for the paper tape, or perhaps too much friction for the feed motor, but I think it would be a good idea in the future to make a holder for the paper tape loop similar to an 8 track cart, so you can have long tape loops without it hanging down into the tubes below. or perhaps just have it loose in an acrylic box like a looping tape machine.
Could perhaps use some opaque white plastic to even out the light for the diodes. I did similar when making a lightbox to view x-ray films.
Translucent. Yeah, a diffuser.
Definitely would be interested in having a bell on this machine if possible
Yo', that Bendix G-15 ain't done until you fix the ink ribbon and make it print. We want to see what the DIAPER program prints out!
Having to bias each tube individually is just part of life if you repair guitar amplifiers. I guess you were hoping to make the analog-to-digital converter more of a fixed unit, but if you can't do that with six tubes in a guitar amp, I'm not at all surprised it doesn't work here either with 16 tubes. (Also, even if it did work, it would probably bite you the first time you install a poorly matched tube.) The "bodge boards" look fine though, they wouldn't look out of place even on a factory-built PCB.
I'm dreaming of a one bitmas!
That was short and sweet
Damn, I really hope you are removing that oxidation on the leads of the photo diodes! You can use a pencil eraser, or a fiberglass pencil to clean it off before soldering!
"ambient light could affect it," card board box it up, problem solved, need slots for paper tape.
bits like to be high, always. slippage is not major issue for self-synchronized tape. by that definition, fathers wall clock is a computer.
if you want to be sporty, you can use a serial cable to run the vacuum tube computer directly. yep using another computer terminal as the tape reader input.
I thought punch strips were a relic from the past. However, I have discovered punched parking tickets in the local parking garage! Now, of course, I'm curious to see if I can reverse engineer them.
Hey, might get drowned out. But you know how at 9:11 you were highlighting the bits of the schematic? It might help a lot of people (like me) for you to match highlights on the physical tech some too! Easier to follow along if we know what's what and don't know all the jargon.
When you have a punched tape reader you'll also need a punched card reader.
Wibble-wobbling! a neologism for the OED?
Too late to compete with "brain rot" as the word of the year for this year.
🎉🎉🎉
Stroke that algorithm boiiiiiiii
you need a flywheel on that motor or electronic speed adjustment like every audio tape motor
Buffering and latching the clock and data would be a good idea
A single fifo 8bit register with the buffer would allow that
Read in on rising clock, output on falling edge
Have you tested reader while mounted on wall? I think tape may slip out of roller in that orientation
Two questions: 1. For those of us that cannot afford a scope like you have, what would be a really good 4 channel scope for under $1k? 2. If you pet a rabbit while it is asleep, is there a chance you could scare it and it would bite you?
11:13 time to build a pair of remote micro work hands to do fiddly work with? It's old tech!
My thought as well. If I have to do more than two or three of any 'fiddly work', I take a minute to get them out and devise a 'jig' to hold things. Easier in the long run and neater product.
you should do the 6502 as a vaccum-tube "chip". that would be epic. and then you remove the 6502 from a NES and connect your vaccum-tube version to play games
Imagine you get to be the man who needs the foresight to hand build an inverting amplifier and a cathode follower buffer in the last days of the year 2024!!
👍
All very cool 😎 Maybe you already said, I'm curious what the total power consumption is when the whole wall is powered up?
Nice
Well, for those that watch all videos: we now know what that crush was. :)