Wow.

Reading through these lab notes, it seems that Mr. Jan [CENSORED] once read about a home-made mini-computer called the HAL-4096 and wanted to build one himself. Enclosed in these notes are letters passed back and forth between Mr. [CENSORED] and Mr. Hal Chamberlin. Thanks to Google, I’ve learned that the HAL-4096 was built by Mr. Chamberlin and a Mr. David Cox back in 1966. Mr. Chamberlin was also the first person to demonstrate music synthesis on a computer, the old classic recording of ‘Daisy, Daisy’ that I’m sure everyone remembers hearing at one point or another.

I’m just amazed…

This weekend I was given the amazing opprotunity to look through the basement of my friend’s deceased neighbor, removing whatever electronic goodies I wanted, as they were all about to be thrown away. I ended up with boxes of tubes, some old US Military test equipment, and various control panels. What I ended up with is just a drop in the bucket compared to the total amount of stuff down there.

It appears that Mr. [CENSORED] was working on two major projects in particular, neither of which he ever finished. The first project, as detailed in the letters I found, was to build a functioning mini-computer. I don’t think he quite understood what he was getting into, though, as one of the letters from Mr. Chamberlin includes the following: “NEITHER MACHINES IS A DESK CALCULATOR OR ADDING MACHINE. BOTH ARE TRUE GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTERS WHICH MUST BE PROGRAMMED PROPERLY TO PERFORM A USEFUL FUNCTION.” The second project appears to be a rather large Tesla coil. From looking around , I think it’s best that the Tesla coil was never completed, as he seemed to be assembling the thing in his basement, right near a (improperly vented) gas-powered generator and all the other standard basement things.

As soon as I get photos taken of the equipment, I’ll post it, along with the few photos that were snapped in the basement. There is also the chassis and a number of the cards from a Burroughs analog computer used for industrial controls.

I think I also ended up with a few things marked US Government Property, including some old punch cards with embedded microfilm that seem to detail electrical components from an ordinance group. These will require more investigation…