Zusie dead end

Day 2

Well after a decent nights sleep many things have started to coalesce in my brain as to what I read yesterday and I feel pretty psyched for more brain baking today. That said I'm moving my study to a different site with a slightly modernized take on the relay computer here. Just to see what else is out there then tomorrow. I'm going to explore what seems to be the quintessential relay computer which is Harry Porter's relay computer and all of my peripheral exploration points to that being where I can get the most education on the topic. Last night I did some youtube exploring and watched a few videos including Harry Porter's and that is definitely the type I'm going for so that is going to be my guide for the build in all likelihood.

Zusie

Well right out of the gate this seems much less complex mechanically but that is because the ISA and program itself is all stored and run on modern equipment (solid state drive and DOS OS computer) This fact seems to put this into the same category as my PiDP-8 kit cool and retro looking but not truly working in the old way even if the input and/or outputs are the same. The single cabinet it's mounted in looks nice and is more reminiscent of early micro computers than the relay computers I've seen.  though a platform like this may be fun to build for blinking lights type of entertainment. 

About Zusie

moving the 64K memory to solid state seems to solve the same problem described in Relay Computer 2 with program storage and the like. Though they found a traditional workaround to this by using a 16 bit address bus instead of 8 giving the same 64K of memory. The ALU also seems significantly less powerful I'm beginning to see why the RC2 and Porter's computers are multiple panels chock full of relays and this is a single board. It's not bad just not as powerful like a Geo Metro vs a Mustang. They're running the assembler in DOS which I'm sure presents it's own fresh set of nightmares and as such allows the use of lots of parallel cabling instead of standard wire which neatens things up well perhaps I can incorporate the cabling into my design to improve the aesthetic.  Looking into this sadly shows very little of use to my project as all of the instructions are carried by the PC to the ALU for calculation only so very little non modern tech compared to the RC2 or Porter machines though it does provide a potential source for relays. If anyone reads this and knows where they can be found cheap and in bulk by all means let me know. Otherwise if the scrap idea doesn't pan either I think I'll have to start scouring Ebay and Alibaba(probably what I'll research for the rest of the day.

So tomorrow on to the Porter computer and we will be going between that Wikipedia and the RC2 page for the foreseeable future.