ScuzzBlog: Diaries May 2021 Entry 28th May 2021: Post 3: My home made 8-bit paper computer. My home made 8-bit paper computer. Back in the days when I was but a lad in school I had often thought of creating a simple data base machine. This was before the launch of the home computer and many years before my first ZX81. One of my fun activities was to set up with my brother a massive battle of all our soldiers on the floor of the lounge. Problem was finding the types of soldier for the selected locations. I suddenly had this brilliant idea using old bits of card and a set of moms knitting needles of creating a card for each of soldier type, and referencing them as either yes or no to a simple question, which was identified by having a solid hole for yes and a slot for no. The idea being that I simply inserted needles for the type of soldier I wanted and when the others dropped away I would be left with just the soldiers that were suitable. The process involved doing one selection at a time until there were only cards left that met the criteria. I can't recall just how I worded the questions but I recall refining the responses to a specific line of questioning that did indeed provide results that I could quickly act upon. And so was born my first 8-bits of data storing to generate a quick and pretty effective data base. Sadly I don't have the cards or the soldiers any more as they were given away decades ago. The process turned out to be way more fun than the playing with soldiers in the end and led me to creating a whole series of similar question and answer selection processes to sort data. I had inadvertently tripped upon the binary processes used in computers. I didn't even know I had done it. Very happy days..... Took us all day to set up the soldiers and about ten minutes to knock them all over. So funny. My home made 8-bit paper computer. Modern interpretation from memory.

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Last updated 28th May 2021

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