A Bell Labs cardboard computer recreated #VintageComputing #History
Back in the 1960’s and early 70’s Bell Labs made some very sophisticated educational kits available to high schools and colleges. Designed for classroom use, they included wonderful manuals written by some of Bell Labs best minds. One of these kits, introduced in 1968, was CARDIAC: A CARDboard Illustrative Aid to Computation.
I remember working with a CARDIAC in high school. It must have been 1969 or 1970. We were lucky enough to have a couple of keypunch machines at our school, and our card decks of FORTRAN programs were run at the local board of education with only 2 days turnaround (instilled a lifelong habit of thoroughly checking my work before submitting it). So while I was learning the ins and outs of writing programs, the CARDIAC helped me to understand what was going on inside the machine that I was running them on.
In an Instructable, megardi publishes files and instructions to recreate this handy tool. All the files needed to print and make your own CARDIAC are available as well as a PDF of the “instructional manual” that came with the kit.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
I still have my original CARDIAC, which a teacher gave me in 1970. I had a lot of fun working with it.