Reminiscing and Bristol’s Big Hex Machine

© Mark Ollig

I woke up this morning a couple of hours before the alarm clock (Google Assistant smart device) went off.

Therefore, I decided to get an early start to the day.

It is 65 degrees out, so I opened the living room window to let in some fresh air.

Looking to the east, I see colorful hues of orange, red, and yellow from the morning sunrise.

While drinking from a freshly-brewed cup of coffee made by my Keurig coffeemaker, I began writing today’s column.

In the late 1970s, I rented an apartment in Wadena, where I attended telecommunications school at Wadena Vo-Tech, now called the Minnesota State Community and Technical College.

During the morning class, Myrlen Timm taught us electronic circuit design and theory.

When entering the classroom, he would regularly walk up to the blackboard, take a piece of chalk, and draw out a circuit diagram.

Mr. Timm would then point at places on the diagram and say to us, “I want you to tell me the voltage and current outputs here, here, and here. I also want you to tell me what this circuit is used for.”

After class, we paired off in twos and went into the lab to build and test electronic circuits.

We placed a wooden solderless breadboard on our lab table and picked out the electronic components, wire, and tools needed to build our assigned circuits.

The solderless breadboard allowed faster connections of electronic components and wiring. We built our circuits on it in less time than it would take if all the connections needed to be soldered.

There were also many times when we used standard industry-printed circuit boards for “through-hole soldering” of wiring and electronic components.

For one class project, I authored a report on how to build and operate an ohmmeter. I made the ohmmeter and had it inspected by Mr. Timm to verify its proper operation. All the output values passed muster.

Recently, I talked with my brother, Mike, about Wadena; he also graduated from there.

Mike reminisced, “Mr. Timm covered a lot of ground. In addition to using logic gates and vacuum tubes, we made FM radios on breadboards with frequency filters that would pulse light at different frequencies with music, like, the song, “Saturday Night Fever,” which was popular back then. I remember he taught us how to use a slide rule. I took the test. Got an A. The next day, he told us, ‘OK, pull out your calculators.’”

In years gone by, while working at the Winsted Telephone Company, before digital telephone systems and subscriber line programming using a keyboard, we did a lot of wire soldering.

Inside the central telephone office, individual subscriber lines were physically wired on the MDF (main distribution frame) using 24- or 22-gauge wiring.

The MDF terminal block wiring was cabled into the many bay cabinets containing relay bars that made up the electromechanical analog telephone switch we used for customer call processing.

Each plastic-insulated wire required about an inch of exposed copper wrapped around a metal terminal on the MDF.

These metal terminal wire connections were bonded with rosin-core solder using a soldering iron.

A soldering apron was used to cover the lower terminal blocks on the MDF so no cut wire snippets or solder splashes would fall onto them and cause a short-circuit between the metal terminals – which were energized.

In December 1986, the telephone company installed a new digital central office for processing voice calls.

A brand-new MDF held block terminals for physically connecting the outside wiring with the new central office digital switching system.

The new MDF used a hand-operated (or electric) wire-wrap gun tool for terminating the wiring.

I digress back to my days in Wadena.

During a morning break, when we left the lab, one mischievous student (not me, of course) snuck back into the lab and switched the polarity on a few DC capacitors wired on a breadboard.

After the break, two students returned to their lab table and turned on the power providing voltage to their circuit on the breadboard.

Loud firecracker-like “Pop! Pop! Pop!” sounds were heard from the capacitors bursting due to their reversed polarity.

Many of the students in the lab erupted in laughter.

Mr. Timm, however, was not laughing.

After witnessing this prank, I always checked my DC capacitors’ polarity before turning on the power supply.

-More recently, students attending the University of Bristol in the UK learned in a unique way how a computer operates.

They, and their teacher built a 16-bit computer with all its wiring and electronic components on a wall-mounted breadboard plywood sheet measuring 86 square feet.

This computer is called the Big Hex Machine.

The Big Hex Machine is used as a teaching tool that provides a visual representation of how the wiring paths are used to connect the inputs and outputs of the computer’s electronic components.

A 16-bit hexadecimal numbering system is used for processing programs.

Each single 16-bit hexadecimal number is two bytes – as there are 8 bits in 1 byte.

Numerous hexadecimal modules used with the students 16-bit computer include the logic gates NOT, AND, OR, and XOR, as well as an arithmetic unit module for making operational logic decisions.

The computer’s non-volatile memory stores up to 32,768 bytes of information, and will retain its data after losing power.

University of Bristol students are writing and programming code into the computer. They execute programs and observe the results on a custom-built LED matrix display screen.

A short video of the working Big Hex Machine can be seen at https://bit.ly/3esHkUG.

Mr. Timm was an excellent teacher and a caring person. I appreciate everything he taught me. I was saddened to learn he passed away Nov. 4, 1993.

Continue to stay safe out there.

Milwaukee: home of the first typewriter

© Mark Ollig

How many of my readers recall writing their high school class reports using a manual or electric typewriter?

In the 1960s and 1970s, models of typewriters included Royal, Brother, Olympia, Remington, Olivetti, and the one I used, a Smith-Corona manual typewriter.

These are all QWERTY typewriters, named because the keyboard design is based on the original typewriter made by Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel Soule.

If you look down at your keyboard, you will see the first six keys on the top left letter row read: QWERTY.

Sholes arranged the keys in the QWERTY layout to minimize the likelihood of jamming the typebars of the typewriter.

All of us who used typewriters have no doubt encountered “type-bar clash” (when while typing, the metal arms carrying the letters did not retract and thus stuck together).

Sholes, Glidden, and Soule filed a patent Oct. 11, 1867, for their first functioning type-writing machine, made in Charles F. Kleinsteuber’s machine shop at 318 State Street in Milwaukee, WI.

They were awarded a US Patent June 23, 1868, for a type-writing machine that looked more like a small wooden music box and nothing like the typewriters we used back in the day.

The three worked for seven years on mechanical alterations, improvements, and testing. They refined their original model into a machine that could reliably type letters and numbers using an inked ribbon.

The original typewriter operated using long wires to connect the typing bars and key-levers to strike the paper positioned on a flat plate. The letters were all uppercased; no lowercase.

One of the alterations replaced the long wires with a simplified key-bar operation for striking the keys onto the typing paper, which was tissue-thin, unlike today’s thicker typing paper.

A revolving cylinder was used as the paper carrier to rotate enough space for the letters and incorporated an index to change the lines. This cylinder allowed the use of thicker paper.

Another alteration to their typewriter was to use short, stiff wires connecting the key-levers to the typebars at an angle that kept the typed letters on a reliable horizontal alignment on the paper.

“I am satisfied the machine is now done,” declared Sholes in September 1869.

The Sholes, Glidden, and Soule typewriters were being factory-made in Milwaukee during summer 1871, at a makeshift shop between the Milwaukee River and Rock River Canal.

Energy from a watermill near the canal was used by the factory workers to construct each typewriter.

The cost of manufacturing the typewriters turned out to be more than what they were being sold for.

It was decided to look for an established outside manufacturer to make the typewriters.

At the time, E. (Eliphalet) Remington Rand & Sons were manufacturing sewing machines, farm implements, and firearms in Ilion, NY.

A contract was signed March 1, 1873, with Remington to have their chief mechanics rework and produce a minimum of 1,000 typewriters.

E. Remington Rand & Sons eventually purchased the rights to the typewriter.

The new design for mass production called for encasing the production version of the typewriter in metal instead of wood.

The final Sholes, Glidden, and Soule typewriters produced by Remington were the same in form and function as the last Milwaukee-built machines; however, the refinements resulted in significant advancements in the overall design of their typewriter.

In 1874, the first commercially successful mass-produced Sholes & Glidden typewriter for the public was called the Remington No. 1.

It was said this began a revolution in how commerce, business, and communications would be conducted, as this typewriter could write much faster than a person could handwrite.

The News Journal newspaper from Wilmington, DE wrote about the Sholes & Glidden typewriter Oct. 26, 1874, saying, “Sholes & Glidden’s typewriter, an ingenious mechanical key printing machine, very simple in construction and capable of printing from 60 to 75 words per minute.”

The same year, the Remington No. 1 typewriter was being manufactured, John Thomas Underwood and his father began a factory in New Durham, NJ, for manufacturing carbon paper, ink ribbons, and other supplies and accessories used with typewriting machines.

In his autobiography, Samuel Clemens, most notably known as Mark Twain, said he was the first writer to present a publisher with a typewritten manuscript for his book, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” in 1876.

In 1886, E. Remington and Sons sold their typewriter interests to the Standard Typewriter Manufacturing Company, whose owners previously worked for Eliphalet Remington.

In 1902, Standard Typewriter Manufacturing Company changed its name to the Remington Typewriter Company.

In 1927, Remington Typewriter Company merged with the Rand Kardex company and became Remington Rand.

In 1950, Remington Rand acquired the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, which made the ENIAC computer.

In 1951, Remington Rand came out with the UNIVAC computer.

In 1955, Remington Rand was purchased by Sperry Corporation.

Since 1986, Sperry Corporation has been a part of the information and technology company called Unisys.

Sholes died Feb. 17, 1890, aged 71.

Glidden passed away March 11, 1877, at the age of 42.

Soule died July 12, 1875; he was 45 years old.

US Patent 79265 for Sholes, Glidden, and Soules’s Type Writing Machine was awarded June 23, 1868. It can be seen at https://bit.ly/3eaGDiQ.

Today’s computer keyboards are very advanced; however, I still enjoy using the vintage qwerty typewriter-style keyboard with its tactile feel and clicky-sounding mechanical keys.

Stay safe out there.

My computer typing terminal with the
qwerty typewriter-style keyboard, tactile feel, and clicky-sounding mechanical keys. :)

US Patent 79265 for Sholes, Glidden, and Soules’s
 Type Writing Machine

The modern information age: binary ones and zeros

Did any of you ever take a Boolean algebra class?

George Boole, a 19th-century professor of mathematics from Queens College in Cork, Ireland, is the person we can thank for it.

He wrote about the world of binary logic in his 1847 book: “The Mathematical Analysis of Logic.”

Most agree that Boole is responsible for the logical calculation processes used in digital computing systems.

Boolean algebraic logic values, true and false variables, are used to analyze and streamline digital logic circuitry used in computing systems to execute programs.

The zeros and ones used in binary coding are part of the Boolean sphere recognized as the false value known as “0,” and the true value known as “1.”

In the mid-1970s, I took digital binary electronic circuitry classes correlating the “0” as an absence of voltage and the “1” as a voltage presence.

Logic gates are a physical device applying a specific Boolean function used to control input/output combination possibilities for performing logical operations using digital circuitry, acting in a sense, as electronic switches.

Signal inputs 0 or a 1 are used on electronic digital logic gates, such as NOR, AND, NAND, XNOR, and OR.

An OR gate with two inputs of A/B using a 0/A 0/B input would result in an output of 0.

In an OR logic gate, if any of the input A/B signal inputs are high (1), the output signal is high (1).

Other types of logic gates will have different outputs based on their input signals.

Sounds logical.

I have previously written about some of the early 20th-century electronic digital computing systems using binary logic.

In 1946, The Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC), known as The Giant Brain, was built at the University of Pennsylvania.

Our British friends across the pond constructed the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC). It was running computing programs in 1949.

The US Army used a binary computer called the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC), which became operational in 1949.

My favorite is from 1951, the Universal Automatic Computer, commonly known as the UNIVAC.

It was an electronic digital mainframe computer manufactured by the Remington Rand company in the US.

UNIVAC is one of those room-sized computers with combined cabinet dimensions of 14 feet long by 7.5 feet wide by 8 feet high.

The UNIVAC gained fame for its appearance on CBS television when it predicted the winner of the 1952 presidential election.

I watched an archived video showing CBS newscaster Walter Cronkite reporting from his anchor desk on the evening of the presidential election, Nov. 4, 1952.

A teletype machine was located near his anchor desk to send and receive information from the UNIVAC.

At around 7:30 p.m. CST, the UNIVAC determined the presidential winner would be Dwight Eisenhower – even though only a small percentage of the votes had been counted.

The UNIVAC had calculated 100-1 odds in favor of Eisenhower winning the election over Adlai Stevenson.

The accuracy of the UNIVAC’s prediction was less than 1 percent – which stunned the news folks at CBS.

CBS delayed disclosing the computer’s prediction because, at the time, public opinion polling showed Stevenson was leading.

CBS executives feared the UNIVAC was wrong, and thus CBS, too, would be wrong.

However, the UNIVAC’s prediction was correct.

“We saw it as an added feature to our coverage that could be very interesting in the future, and there was a great deal of pride that we had this exclusively. But I don’t think that we felt the computer would become predominant in our coverage, in any way,” Cronkite said about the UNIVAC.

Let’s talk a little about George Boole.

He was born Nov. 2, 1815, in Lincoln, England.

Boole specialized in differential mathematical equations and algebraic logic.

He was an English mathematician and Professor of Mathematics at the University College in Cork, Ireland.

Boole authored another book in 1854 titled “The Laws of Thought,” where he described algebraic logic probabilities and equations.

“The distinction between true and false, between correct and incorrect, exists in the processes of the intellect, but not in the region of a physical necessity. As we advance from the lower stages of organic being to the higher grade of conscious intelligence, this contrast gradually dawns upon us,” Boole wrote.

The basic principles in this book became the foundation of what would become the modern “information age.”

Boole was 49 years old when he passed away on Dec. 8, 1864.

He is buried in the village of Blackrock, within Cork City, Ireland.

The Project Gutenberg organization has archived Boole’s book, “Laws of Thought” at http://tinyurl.com/bytesGB.

Boole’s “The Mathematical Analysis of Logic,” published in 1847, can be read at http://tinyurl.com/bytes-1847.

A detailed diagram of the OR gate can be seen here: http://tinyurl.com/bytes-OR.

The University College Cork produced a 7-minute video about George Boole at http://tinyurl.com/Boolevid.

Continue to stay safe out there.

We are looking at binary digital data

OR Gate

Binary 0 through 10

Is there anybody out there?

© Mark Ollig

On Sept. 19, 1959, Nature magazine published the article, “Searching for Interstellar Communication,” written by Philip Morrison and Giuseppi Cocconi.

“No theories yet exist which enable a reliable estimate of the probabilities of planet formation, [the] origin of life, or evolution of societies possessing advanced scientific capabilities,” reads the first sentence.

Morrison and Cocconi, both physicists from Cornell University in New York, go into further detail on a proposal of how to search for intelligence beyond the Earth.

Their last sentence accurately states, “The probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search, the chance of success is zero.”

The first serious attempt at detecting interstellar radio transmissions from deep space began in 1960, by Frank Drake, an astrophysicist, and radio astronomer for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, WV.

Drake selected two stars to study; the Tau Ceti in the constellation Cetus, and the Epsilon Eridani in the constellation Eridanus.

Both stars are as old as the sun. They are 11 light-years, or 66 trillion miles away from Earth.

For six hours each day from April to July in 1960, the NRAO radio telescope listened to 1,420 MHz for any modulated pulses or radio signals suggesting extraterrestrial intelligence.

Anxiety must have run high when a secret military experiment set off a false extraterrestrial message signal alert. With this single exception, by the end of July, the only thing heard was static.

On Oct. 28, 1961, Nature magazine published an April 15, 1961 paper authored by American physicists Charles Townes and Robert Schwartz, titled “Interstellar and Interplanetary Communication by Optical Masers.”

A “maser” or microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, is the predecessor of laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) technology.

Their paper suggests an alternative method of receiving and transmitting communications with extraterrestrials, using sophisticated optical laser technology, which an advanced extraterrestrial civilization could be using.

The paper submits, rather than microwave radio, an extraterrestrial civilization’s interstellar communications might be transmitted using optical light wavelengths via laser technology.

They suggest if planets light-years from Earth were using optical laser beams for communications, we could detect them with telescopes and spectrographs being used in 1961.

Of course, in 1961, the use of lasers on this planet was still in its infancy.

The first working laser operated May 16, 1960, at Hughes Research Laboratory in California.

In 2018, I wrote a column on a study that proposes how a linear laser beam transmitted from Earth could be used as a “planetary porch light.”

The idea was to transmit a laser beam strong enough not to be obscured by our sun’s radiation so that it could be seen light-years away.

Possibly, an astronomer living on one of the three planets said to be orbiting Proxima Centauri, which is the nearest star, 4.24 light-years from Earth, would be able to detect the linear laser beam originating from our planet.

This astronomer might become curious about the straight line of radiated monochromatic light originating from Sol’s third planet, our sun. Would a satellite be sent to Earth to investigate?

In 1974, Frank Drake created the Arecibo message.

The message was transmitted using interstellar radio into the M13 Global Star Cluster 25,000 light-years away from Earth, on a frequency of 2,380 MHz.

The Arecibo Observatory radio telescope and transmitting antenna dish in Puerto Rico were used to send the three-minute message with 450 kW (Kilowatt) of power.

This message consisted of 210 bytes of information broken down into seven separate references.

The references included the digits one to 10; the formula making up deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA; an illustrative stick figure outline of a human; Earth’s population in 1974 (4 billion); the essential elements of life on Earth; and a graphic of our solar system.

Other messages have been sent, such as the one on a small plaque attached to the Pioneer 10 spacecraft launched March 2, 1972. This plaque contains information to be deciphered by any alien civilization finding it.

The most famous interstellar messages were launched in fall 1977, aboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, now located 13 and 11 billion miles, respectively, from Earth.

A gold-covered phonograph record, etched with humankind’s messages to whatever intelligence finds it, is attached to each Voyager.

Cornell University’s article, “Earth’s first attempt to phone E.T.,” and the Arecibo message is at https://bit.ly/3gKmx0v.

The 1959 article, “Searching for Interstellar Communication,” can be read at https://bit.ly/2TZnIzi.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute began Feb. 1, 1985. Its website is www.seti.org.

Frank Drake, known as The Father of SETI, turned 90 years old May 28, and is still involved with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

So, is there anybody out there?

Consider what astronomer Carl Sagan said, “The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.” 

Stay safe out there.

Frank Drake

Sept. 19, 1959, Nature magazine