@@Drew-Dastardly I think that's why I like it so much - nostalgic memories of the ASR-33 Teletype. The crude "boooop" of a PC speaker was never any kind of substitute.
This whole series of getting the G15 and UE1 to work before the end of the year has brought me so much joy recently, especially all the paper tape reader stuff. Thanks for the amazing journey, Usagi-san!
A long descent into madness. Now it wants a tube-based oscillator hooked to the output register so it can play notes. The UE-1S vacuum tube synthesizer.
It sounds like you are saying "Indian", but the correct work is "Endian". The term comes for the book "Gulliver's Travel", where the two competing factions, Lilliput and Blefuscu, went to war over which end of a hard boiled egg was to be opened (big end vs little end). Early Engineers had a good sense of humor.
Fantastic. I see a lot of talking about the lights. One thing hasn't been mentioned. You are using incandescent lights. As these age, the inner surface of the bulbs will darken. Running for a long time will need continuous readjustment of the diodes thresholds. It would be better to lower the intensity of the lights and increase the sensitivity of the the diodes. This will slow the aging of the lamps. I do hope you have time to read all these replies. Happy new year.
2:12 Actually the paper tape reader IS ROM. It's not like you can do anything else with it! It's just ROM with added visual (and aural) excitement. 24:41 Never in the history of computing has one man been more excited about a bell going "DING"!🤣 Congratulations! I sincerely hope the memory issue isn't too difficult to track down. Have a great New Year!
As paper tape punch is write only, the punch/tape/reader forms a personal WORM memory system. Albeit with "interesting" failure modes, such as when, back in the late seventies when I first encountered a computer, the tape spooled out on to a wooden parquet floor and snagged on a splinter when rewound.... 🥵
@@Photo_CB Technically, IMHO, the paper tape here is not WORM, because it cannot be written by the same device that reads it (the UE-1). In that respect, it is actually just a ROM. (Obviously, all ROMs must be written originally by _something,_ but the typical distinction is that they are written (aka "programmed" or "burned") outside of the system that ultimately reads them in normal operation). Though there is also arguably a difference between "memory" and "storage". The distinction can sometimes be fuzzy, is often arbitrary, and has changed over time, but I think in general most people would still consider paper tape to fall into the "storage" category, and therefore not actually be categorized as a "ROM" per se...
I wonder how hard it would be to hook the UE1 up to the paper tape punch. I doubt UE1 assembly is expressive enough to produce a quine, but it would be fun if it could 🙂
Towards the end of the tube era, they made 12V tubes that used 12V nominal on the plate. These were for car radios. They had an extra grid very close to the cathode that accelerated the electrons towards the control grid. They were an amazing bit of gear. The output stage on the radios was usually done with a PNP germanium transistor or on the really fancy ones two such transistors.
Not at all. Many hardware registers to control things are write-only, because it's easier for the hardware designer. This is very annoying for the software people though, as we have to shadow the value written to remember what it was, if we care to read it back.
I am currently fiddling with a Z8 (not a Z80) CPU and it has several write only registers. Hooked up to this CPU I have a bunch of HP DL1414 displays and they are also write only 🙂 By overlaying the displays with SRAM it is possible to read the former written value.
@@JohnDlugosz I tend to write the code for the hardware I design but I have done write only memories more than once. I also did a design where it did matter what you wrote. When you wrote, the LSB of the address bus became the new value for the flip-flop.
A cool variant of write only memory is in banks, transaction backups are written to media that is designed to not be able to seek back to prevent overriding historical transaction data, could be stuff like magnetic tape or paper printers.
@@kensmith5694 exactly as @frozendude707 said. People will want them as mementos. I have a few of those and other "ancient artifacts" - and I show them to the young IT generation that don't realize those were actually real and used by people. You can see their mind exploding and their brains starting to make the connections needed to properly understand computers.
Wow, this is absolutely incredible, the algorithm is on point today. Subscribed! Also, I think it's hilarious that you just made like... Basically the most complicated 5-second timer for a bell
Congratulations on meeting your goal of getting both your VTCs executing code by the end of the year! This was quite an ambitious goal. We were all rooting for you and are happy to see both machines ringing out the year with their respective bells! Happy New Year!
I've been following this project for a while now and now that it can run code, wanted to say "CONGRATULATIONS". You are truely amazing. I am very envious of people like you. Well done.
Re: 2D21 If you look at how the Bendix is wired, you will see that the cathodes of the thyratrons are all tied to ground. You have a relay coil in the cathode circuit, which is raising your firing voltage by the voltage of the coil. Change it so the relay is in the plate circuit, and your firing problem will disappear.
If the thyratron is off, there is no current through the relay. No current, no voltage. It should be fine. When the thyratron fires, it will hold current through the relay. Then there is voltage across the coil. As long as the current is enough to hold the thyratron on, it should work fine.
It's probably nice to run that computer in a closed room in wintertime. My new Mac mini M4 runs on about the same power as the three lamps in the paper tape reader.
Yeah, needing more grid current makes sense in a way. The plate voltage for your thyratrons normally is high enough that it accelerates the electrons very quickly through the gas, causing secondary ionizations in the gas molecules. With a low plate voltage the electrons don't accelerate as much, so you need a lot more to get the avalanche going.
Since memory is tape based for the UE1, you can have the Centurion communicate with the UE1 via the tape punch. You should be able to send binary to the tape punch from the Centurion.
@10:30, see if you can find car interior filament bulbs. The are shaped like a fuse and have a long stretched out filament. Or, see if you can get transparent filament mini X-mas bulbs, 9 of them in series without their case, 1 per bit or 1 per every 2 bits all flatly assembled. Careful as they exist in 3v and 1.5v variants.
My father founded the industrial control system corporation for the early US semi conductor industry, Robitech Inc. He passed this past summer at 85. He would have loved this channel. Keep it up! 🇺🇲
You might lengthen the plate on the left side of the tape reader's "bit bucket" That would help guide the returning tape back into the bucket. Good work, man!
Three cheers and a tiger for you! You got both the Bendix G15 and the UE1 working by the end of the year. I have to admit that I didn't understand half of it, but I sure enjoyed watching it. It would be really amazing to see both of those computers do something more than just execute test code. Not that just executing test code belittles your achievements in any way, but I know the Bendix G15 was a business computer that presumably ran some sort of program that an organization needed, and, well, I have no idea what one does with a 1-bit computer, but I sure would love to find out. But for now, I hope you have a very happy, healthy and safe New Years holiday, and I look forward to more vintage computing adventures with you.
It's a really great feeling when a large project starts to near completion and actually work. Way to stay on it, you made it to the end of the year with a working home brew computer! I've built a computer from scratch so I know what your dealing with and I know how good it is to see it come to life. Congrats!!!
Write only Memory is more common than most would think. LCD displays are usually treated as if they are write only memory you can arbitrarily write to a LCD panel but you cannot read it back.
10:37 Do not add a 3rd bulb; get a half round of plexiglass or lucite coated with a mirror finish (easy to make) and illuminate from both end. Put the flat side facing the diodes.
Hearing the UE1 ringing its bell was a wonderful way to wrap up the year! Been watching you work on it for all these years, so this is an amazing achievement!
Man I just love to see your joy when things work out eventually, this channel is one of the best I found on UA-cam.. thank you for these great videos and much success in your future projects!♥
Oh come on. That was the first language I learned to program on and I'm 42 and it was new in 1991. And you think vacuum tubes seem more modern 😂 now I do feel oldish
I called it, didn't I? The UE1 is gonna have to be finished in the new year. But that's okay, because it's fun to watch you gradually figure everything out and overcome all of the problems to get a working, completely "home-brew" vacuum tube computer. And your joy at getting things working is infectious. 😄 So congratuations. You've worked hard on this little "baby" and you've got your reward: A bell, dinging in the New Year. So, Happy New Year to you and to the UE1. 😃
This is like learning from steam powered and belt driven machinists. It’s a foundation knowledge if forgotten will possibly set back civilization for an unknown amount of time if not preserved as a coat tail for those to rebuild or understand the root of the tech they are using. I have no idea how to build or program but fully support the project. Not many can build a computer from scratch!
You need to make a test tape with 20 holes in a row in each bit in succession - preceded by no holes and followed by all holes - to test lamps and photodetectors.
Pretty cool to see the UE-1 working. I appreciate the troubleshooting and explanation of what the issue was and the possible solution. I hope you and your family had a Merry Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year. Thanks for the videos.
~24:39 - 25:20 Yep. THIS! Happy new year to you and yours, David. So, you've got the G15 executing app code and the UE-1 can execute enough code to "BEL" then "HLT" -> You've got both these valve computers executing code before 2024 was out - Very well done! 🍻 - "Just" some fine tuning to finish these off 😉
That was awesome! I really enjoyed this series. You may need to add one more thing though. A wire wound potentiometer to the tape motor, about 100~ ohm maybe a bit more for better speed stepping when diagnosing, and possibly a few rollers at the bottom of the tape loop, because if you run a loop long enough it is likely to get snag somewhere, maybe on a tube even. All in all it's pretty impressive. Again... Very good Job. Have Happy New Year.
I don't know vacuum tubes, I don't know vintage computing, and I have NO idea what you're talking about. But dang, do I love the vibes of a hobbyist in their element.
Just Bonkers man. Someone's gotta do it. Thanks for going to such contrivances, it is really inspirational/encouraging. I love that it is on a plywood panel too hehe.
Use a festoon lamp, they’ve got long filaments - you might find one with a filament long enough to illuminate all photodiodes. One of them is 24V 5W 11mm diameter x 42mm long. You can get others the size of a 1.25” fuse.
A way to get focused light is to use a round bar of plexiglas. If done right you get a light slot. May be something to use, I have no clue but I know it works. Thanks for all the great videos.
You finally did it. Both, the G15 and the UE1 are running code. I love it. You did well. Now I'm waiting, what coming next. I wish you a very happy new year.😊
Many years ago, my then boss was irritated that the bell would ring on his computer every time an email with an overly long line came in- which was frequent. He asked one of engineers if he could disable the bell. Many hours of disassembly and tweaking later, the bell was gone. My boss announced at the next staff meeting that the engineer was now the proud recipient of the “NO-BELL PRIZE.” We were suitably impressed.
I wonder if a bulb with a straight filament would work better for illuminating the paper tape. These are used in automotive applications. One example is Sylvania P/N 6418.
I agree. The photons has to travel in a straight line from the filament to each photo diode. A straight filament in line with the diodes would probably be a safer setup than three small bulbs. Possibly also a screen with the same hole pattern as the diodes close to the bulb to filter out leakage between the diodes. Get them photons in line! 😁
Another thumbs up for festoon "bulbs", they are not bulbuous at all. They look more like a fuse and are still in use. Since they are used in automotive, military and aviation applications they come in a wide range of sizes, voltages and wattages. Thinking about vintage audio equipment ( ...Marantz... ) there are even more widely used.
Awesome! David, have you considered some kind of diffuser for the tape reader? You're never going to get perfectly even illumination of the photo diodes with just the bulbs because the bulb filament is pretty much a point source, and will not line up through the holes in the tape to the photodiodes. Adding a diffuser would spread the light out, giving more even illumination and probably you could use less lighting power. Another (maybe better still) possibility would be some kind of light pipe made out of clear acrylic, I'm no expert on how these are designed but I have seen them on many a commercial product where a single bulb positioned in a hole in the light pipe provides a bright, even, line of light along its edge. But for now it works!! Happy new year!
Wonderful. We have a one bit computer with memory problems that rings a bell. Sorta like a patient in a memory support ward asking for a nurse. Looking forward to the "hey it's working" moment, followed by unscripted irritation about how the damn bell keeps ringing. 😃 Wishing you, and all who read this, a wonderful 2025 and many more to follow.
We all know the bell rang many more times after you stopped recording.
no doubt there's a tape loop where it just dings incessantly 🙂
To paraphrase Eric Morecambe "It's running all the right instructions....just not necessarily in the right order"
I'll follow up with some Monty Python - "I see you have a machine that goes 'ping!'".
@@mdpenny42 lol :)
That's good enough for me!
Eric Morecambe on the piano. Brilliant.
@@mdpenny42 or Doctor Who - ua-cam.com/video/fq-nqBIERhg/v-deo.htmlsi=JndySkAptqXqCJ2Y
David: I'll put a box down here to hold the tape loop.
Tape loop: Box? What box?
I spent all morning today building guides to make the tape go into the box. It now finds the box at least 90% of the time, lol.
@@UsagiElectricYou should do it like those really long infinite cassettes where they just have the loops go willy-nilly in a box
Awesome. Would love to see the UE1 and the G-15 communicate. Networking between the oldest and newest tube computers.
Networking by smoke signals? (-:
I would love to see that
Electronics are pretty good at communicating via smoke signals, as I found out yesterday when I dumped too much power into a voltage regulator....
At this point you should reach out to the expert: Michael MJD
@@andrewdunbar828ARCnet
That bell is shockingly gratifying. The crowd is never wrong. Every computer should have a bell.
Control - G.
@@Drew-Dastardly I think that's why I like it so much - nostalgic memories of the ASR-33 Teletype. The crude "boooop" of a PC speaker was never any kind of substitute.
This whole series of getting the G15 and UE1 to work before the end of the year has brought me so much joy recently, especially all the paper tape reader stuff. Thanks for the amazing journey, Usagi-san!
Thanks for coming along on the journey with us!
Many more journeys to come in 2025 too!
Oh, I like that update. I agree, it needed that. And you're right, homebrew computing IS hard.
Homebrew computing is soooo hard, mad respect for all the homebrewers out there!
Two working vacuum tube computers in 2024!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Done and done! Congrats!! Well done sir.
The bell really brings the entire UE-1 project together. Also, I love the symmetry of the circular bell control board.
Every computer needs a bell!
\b for life
"I got a fever, and the only prescription, is more computer bell!"
@@MobCat_ I'll take your \b and raise you a ^G
PRINT CHR$(7)
😃
@@hellraizer322😎👍🏽
A long descent into madness.
Now it wants a tube-based oscillator hooked to the output register so it can play notes.
The UE-1S vacuum tube synthesizer.
It most definitely needs a sound card!
It sounds like you are saying "Indian", but the correct work is "Endian".
The term comes for the book "Gulliver's Travel", where the two competing factions, Lilliput and Blefuscu, went to war over which end of a hard boiled egg was to be opened (big end vs little end).
Early Engineers had a good sense of humor.
Fantastic. I see a lot of talking about the lights. One thing hasn't been mentioned. You are using incandescent lights. As these age, the inner surface of the bulbs will darken. Running for a long time will need continuous readjustment of the diodes thresholds. It would be better to lower the intensity of the lights and increase the sensitivity of the the diodes. This will slow the aging of the lamps. I do hope you have time to read all these replies. Happy new year.
"Far away across the field - The tolling of the iron bell - Calls the faithful to their knees - To hear the softly spoken magic spells"
2:12 Actually the paper tape reader IS ROM. It's not like you can do anything else with it! It's just ROM with added visual (and aural) excitement.
24:41 Never in the history of computing has one man been more excited about a bell going "DING"!🤣
Congratulations! I sincerely hope the memory issue isn't too difficult to track down. Have a great New Year!
As paper tape punch is write only, the punch/tape/reader forms a personal WORM memory system. Albeit with "interesting" failure modes, such as when, back in the late seventies when I first encountered a computer, the tape spooled out on to a wooden parquet floor and snagged on a splinter when rewound.... 🥵
@@Photo_CB Ooops! Who knew that it was critical to the operation of the computer that the wooden floor was well sanded!🤔
@@Photo_CB Technically, IMHO, the paper tape here is not WORM, because it cannot be written by the same device that reads it (the UE-1). In that respect, it is actually just a ROM. (Obviously, all ROMs must be written originally by _something,_ but the typical distinction is that they are written (aka "programmed" or "burned") outside of the system that ultimately reads them in normal operation).
Though there is also arguably a difference between "memory" and "storage". The distinction can sometimes be fuzzy, is often arbitrary, and has changed over time, but I think in general most people would still consider paper tape to fall into the "storage" category, and therefore not actually be categorized as a "ROM" per se...
I wonder how hard it would be to hook the UE1 up to the paper tape punch. I doubt UE1 assembly is expressive enough to produce a quine, but it would be fun if it could 🙂
Towards the end of the tube era, they made 12V tubes that used 12V nominal on the plate. These were for car radios.
They had an extra grid very close to the cathode that accelerated the electrons towards the control grid. They were an amazing bit of gear. The output stage on the radios was usually done with a PNP germanium transistor or on the really fancy ones two such transistors.
The same tubes turn out to make exceptionally good single tube regenerative circuits if biased for plate detection.
@@zinckensteel Yes, I can see that they would. They had a fairly high gm
That is quite possibly the most elaborate way to ring a bell that I have ever seen.
My God. The man actually did it. I always thought "write only" memory was just a joke. 😂
Not at all. Many hardware registers to control things are write-only, because it's easier for the hardware designer. This is very annoying for the software people though, as we have to shadow the value written to remember what it was, if we care to read it back.
I am currently fiddling with a Z8 (not a Z80) CPU and it has several write only registers. Hooked up to this CPU I have a bunch of HP DL1414 displays and they are also write only 🙂 By overlaying the displays with SRAM it is possible to read the former written value.
dev null is write only memory.
@@JohnDlugosz I tend to write the code for the hardware I design but I have done write only memories more than once. I also did a design where it did matter what you wrote. When you wrote, the LSB of the address bus became the new value for the flip-flop.
A cool variant of write only memory is in banks, transaction backups are written to media that is designed to not be able to seek back to prevent overriding historical transaction data, could be stuff like magnetic tape or paper printers.
Your joy when that bell rung put a big smile on my face.
Yay! You haven't just made a computer. You made it DO something!
You've got your New Years Eve ticker tape and confetti ready to go! Also, you gave UE1 a face with the bell and its board: O_O
I hope the UE-2 will have a bell in by default!
It's great to see it executing code! You hit your goal! Congratulations!!
A set of bells in different sizes/tones!
That thumbnail-pic totally makes it look like the tape reader is on fire
It's fire!
Congratulations and happy new year, David. UE1 and G-15 both executing code. You are a man of your word.
Please save the "useless" punched paper strips and bring them to the next meetups (DFWRetro & VCFSW). Lots of people would love them.
Why do they want them?
Width 1"
Roll dia 1.5 inches
color yellow
If there is a good reason to, I can mail it to you
@@kensmith5694 I think he means as a memento, kinda like pieces of the Berlin wall, that is really just cheap broken concrete.
@@frozendude707 I hope he does answer because I hunted and found the paper tape.
I also have a card of core memory and a few other things tucked away
@@kensmith5694 exactly as @frozendude707 said. People will want them as mementos. I have a few of those and other "ancient artifacts" - and I show them to the young IT generation that don't realize those were actually real and used by people. You can see their mind exploding and their brains starting to make the connections needed to properly understand computers.
Wow, this is absolutely incredible, the algorithm is on point today.
Subscribed!
Also, I think it's hilarious that you just made like... Basically the most complicated 5-second timer for a bell
Congratulations on meeting your goal of getting both your VTCs executing code by the end of the year! This was quite an ambitious goal. We were all rooting for you and are happy to see both machines ringing out the year with their respective bells! Happy New Year!
I've been following this project for a while now and now that it can run code, wanted to say "CONGRATULATIONS".
You are truely amazing. I am very envious of people like you. Well done.
Re: 2D21
If you look at how the Bendix is wired, you will see that the cathodes of the thyratrons are all tied to ground. You have a relay coil in the cathode circuit, which is raising your firing voltage by the voltage of the coil. Change it so the relay is in the plate circuit, and your firing problem will disappear.
If the thyratron is off, there is no current through the relay. No current, no voltage. It should be fine. When the thyratron fires, it will hold current through the relay. Then there is voltage across the coil. As long as the current is enough to hold the thyratron on, it should work fine.
Then you could increase the grid resistors again, decreasing grid current and improving tube life time
It's probably nice to run that computer in a closed room in wintertime.
My new Mac mini M4 runs on about the same power as the three lamps in the paper tape reader.
Yeah, needing more grid current makes sense in a way. The plate voltage for your thyratrons normally is high enough that it accelerates the electrons very quickly through the gas, causing secondary ionizations in the gas molecules. With a low plate voltage the electrons don't accelerate as much, so you need a lot more to get the avalanche going.
The plasma in the thyratron, does it glow? would a camera view of this help to visualize what is going on?
Since memory is tape based for the UE1, you can have the Centurion communicate with the UE1 via the tape punch. You should be able to send binary to the tape punch from the Centurion.
2:00 "The 25120 is easily cooled by the employment of a six foot fan ..." - wtf? this can't be right
That's not the worst of it, did you see how close it needs to be mounted?
" If the device fails you have exceeded the RAGINGS. "
The device will fail if you hurt it's feelings. Do not become angry at the device.
It also provides 50% more power than you will obtain. Be sure your latex output terminal protectors are in place.
@@Hans-gb4mv Won't this create enough wind to tatter the paper tape loop to pieces?
@@Hans-gb4mvA 6 foot fan, mounted 1/2 inch away. 😳 What the?
@10:30, see if you can find car interior filament bulbs. The are shaped like a fuse and have a long stretched out filament. Or, see if you can get transparent filament mini X-mas bulbs, 9 of them in series without their case, 1 per bit or 1 per every 2 bits all flatly assembled. Careful as they exist in 3v and 1.5v variants.
Or, “grain-of-wheat” bulbs, one each hole?
Now we know what the drones and orbs are looking for --> UE1
Hell Yea! I thought for sure that the round board you cut to control the bell was going the be the Usagi/rabbit board from the intro.
My father founded the industrial control system corporation for the early US semi conductor industry, Robitech Inc. He passed this past summer at 85. He would have loved this channel. Keep it up! 🇺🇲
25:00 "Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings."
I love that this project went bell up, not belly up!
Homebrew computer cowboy must make peace with the endians.
jaajajajajaaaaa....nerd
make my day
Boooo… bad pun! Dad joke material. 🤣😆
So, chiral and nibble-swapped, an accidental middle-endian system.
In the words of Anita Ward - "You can ring my bell, ring my bell (Ring my bell, ring-a-ring-a-ring)"
🎉Happy New Year Everybody🎉
You might lengthen the plate on the left side of the tape reader's "bit bucket" That would help guide the returning tape back into the bucket.
Good work, man!
This was mentioned be a few folk in an earlier video, but a single festoon bulb would probably give more even illumination.
Your happiness at a homemade vacuum tube computer ringing a bell is wonderful. Happy new year and well done!
Can't wait for the 2-bit computer coming in 2025!
"It's my machine that goes, 'DING'."
Three cheers and a tiger for you! You got both the Bendix G15 and the UE1 working by the end of the year. I have to admit that I didn't understand half of it, but I sure enjoyed watching it. It would be really amazing to see both of those computers do something more than just execute test code. Not that just executing test code belittles your achievements in any way, but I know the Bendix G15 was a business computer that presumably ran some sort of program that an organization needed, and, well, I have no idea what one does with a 1-bit computer, but I sure would love to find out. But for now, I hope you have a very happy, healthy and safe New Years holiday, and I look forward to more vintage computing adventures with you.
Assembler written in Quick Basic ! Man, I love you :) Have a wonderful year.
Ponder Stibbons : we now need to add a little gnome that strikes a tiny bell to Hex.
Ridcully : Why?
Ponder : To, um, ring in the new year properly?
You did it. You solved the halting problem. Give this man a Turing award.
It's a really great feeling when a large project starts to near completion and actually work. Way to stay on it, you made it to the end of the year with a working home brew computer! I've built a computer from scratch so I know what your dealing with and I know how good it is to see it come to life. Congrats!!!
Write only Memory is more common than most would think. LCD displays are usually treated as if they are write only memory you can arbitrarily write to a LCD panel but you cannot read it back.
Clock pulse low, data is on high,
And the UE-1 bell is dinging!
Happy festive season!🎄
10:37 Do not add a 3rd bulb; get a half round of plexiglass or lucite coated with a mirror finish (easy to make) and illuminate from both end. Put the flat side facing the diodes.
And absolutely love the ding when it completes a task.
You gained another subscriber brother. 😊
Adding a Fresnel Lens between the bulbs and the paper would help evenly distribute the light for your reader. Great stuff. Keep it coming!
Or, how about a set of “grain-of-wheat” bulbs, one for each hole?
Hearing the UE1 ringing its bell was a wonderful way to wrap up the year! Been watching you work on it for all these years, so this is an amazing achievement!
I can barely keep up with what you're talking about most of the time, but damn your enthusiasm for these projects is so infectious and fun to watch
To the big and little endianness you’ve introduced the left and right handinness!!!
Man I just love to see your joy when things work out eventually, this channel is one of the best I found on UA-cam.. thank you for these great videos and much success in your future projects!♥
Something about David's logic really rings a bell.
Fantastic! Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding!!!!!! Your enthuism for everything is just so infectious
I was NOT ready for that QBASIC assembler... Somehow that language seems more vintage than vacuum tubes.
Oh come on. That was the first language I learned to program on and I'm 42 and it was new in 1991. And you think vacuum tubes seem more modern 😂 now I do feel oldish
That was the part that made me stop cold and go 'What??' Yeah -- was NOT ready for QBASIC -- but hey, it worked!
It always surprises me to see how versatile it can be.
And here I thought it was QuickBASIC. I still have disk images for QuickBASIC 4.5 in my library. It was (and still is) a quite powerful BASIC.
@FreejackVesa hmmmm.... que extranio... I'm 51 and it was new in 1982...
I called it, didn't I? The UE1 is gonna have to be finished in the new year. But that's okay, because it's fun to watch you gradually figure everything out and overcome all of the problems to get a working, completely "home-brew" vacuum tube computer. And your joy at getting things working is infectious. 😄 So congratuations. You've worked hard on this little "baby" and you've got your reward: A bell, dinging in the New Year. So, Happy New Year to you and to the UE1. 😃
This is like learning from steam powered and belt driven machinists. It’s a foundation knowledge if forgotten will possibly set back civilization for an unknown amount of time if not preserved as a coat tail for those to rebuild or understand the root of the tech they are using. I have no idea how to build or program but fully support the project. Not many can build a computer from scratch!
Congratulations full engineering prowess. Ring a bell. Switch an LED. Make a motor move. All milestones.
You need to make a test tape with 20 holes in a row in each bit in succession - preceded by no holes and followed by all holes - to test lamps and photodetectors.
very cool. i bet that room smells like a comfy living room with an old tube tv in it.
I think there is nothing more awesome than programming a vacuum tube computer.
Pretty cool to see the UE-1 working. I appreciate the troubleshooting and explanation of what the issue was and the possible solution. I hope you and your family had a Merry Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year. Thanks for the videos.
This is so awesome! 😊 One small step turned into a journey.
Thanks for sharing this awesomeness.
🎵you can ring my bell, ring my bell 🎵🤣never seen anyone so happy to hear a bell. Congratulations. All the very best for the New Year.
"DING" - what a great gift for Christmas! Happy New Year! This channel is just amazing! 🙂
~24:39 - 25:20 Yep. THIS! Happy new year to you and yours, David.
So, you've got the G15 executing app code and the UE-1 can execute enough code to "BEL" then "HLT"
-> You've got both these valve computers executing code before 2024 was out - Very well done! 🍻 - "Just" some fine tuning to finish these off 😉
Most people go to Home Depot when they need a new doorbell, meet the guy who built a custom computer instead.
Hearing that bell go ping for the first time is sooo pleasing 😁
‼️This is the only tech channel with any effort or talent and it’s a lot of talent.
That look of accomplishment and it working sorta brought tears to my eyes. What a journey it's been!
That was awesome! I really enjoyed this series. You may need to add one more thing though. A wire wound potentiometer to the tape motor, about 100~ ohm maybe a bit more for better speed stepping when diagnosing, and possibly a few rollers at the bottom of the tape loop, because if you run a loop long enough it is likely to get snag somewhere, maybe on a tube even. All in all it's pretty impressive.
Again... Very good Job. Have Happy New Year.
Sweet way to end the year! Thanks for bringing us along!!
I don't know vacuum tubes, I don't know vintage computing, and I have NO idea what you're talking about. But dang, do I love the vibes of a hobbyist in their element.
That was a good one. And a good finale for this year. Thanks for showing, have a nice time out and a Happy New Year ! Let's see what comes up next ...
Just Bonkers man. Someone's gotta do it. Thanks for going to such contrivances, it is really inspirational/encouraging. I love that it is on a plywood panel too hehe.
Use a festoon lamp, they’ve got long filaments - you might find one with a filament long enough to illuminate all photodiodes. One of them is 24V 5W 11mm diameter x 42mm long. You can get others the size of a 1.25” fuse.
A way to get focused light is to use a round bar of plexiglas. If done right you get a light slot. May be something to use, I have no clue but I know it works. Thanks for all the great videos.
Came here to say similar 😄
You finally did it. Both, the G15 and the UE1 are running code. I love it. You did well.
Now I'm waiting, what coming next.
I wish you a very happy new year.😊
Many years ago, my then boss was irritated that the bell would ring on his computer every time an email with an overly long line came in- which was frequent. He asked one of engineers if he could disable the bell. Many hours of disassembly and tweaking later, the bell was gone. My boss announced at the next staff meeting that the engineer was now the proud recipient of the “NO-BELL PRIZE.” We were suitably impressed.
The Bell was a nice touch
I wonder if a bulb with a straight filament would work better for illuminating the paper tape. These are used in automotive applications. One example is Sylvania P/N 6418.
I agree. The photons has to travel in a straight line from the filament to each photo diode. A straight filament in line with the diodes would probably be a safer setup than three small bulbs. Possibly also a screen with the same hole pattern as the diodes close to the bulb to filter out leakage between the diodes. Get them photons in line! 😁
Another thumbs up for festoon "bulbs", they are not bulbuous at all. They look more like a fuse and are still in use. Since they are used in automotive, military and aviation applications they come in a wide range of sizes, voltages and wattages. Thinking about vintage audio equipment ( ...Marantz... ) there are even more widely used.
2:00 "If the device fails, you have exceeded the ragings."
A common issue I would imagine.
Oh so awesome, I must have a bell on my laptop now. Happy newyear!
"The machine that goes 'Ping'".
Congrats, Dave! I look forward to seeing it at a VCF someday.
Awesome! David, have you considered some kind of diffuser for the tape reader? You're never going to get perfectly even illumination of the photo diodes with just the bulbs because the bulb filament is pretty much a point source, and will not line up through the holes in the tape to the photodiodes. Adding a diffuser would spread the light out, giving more even illumination and probably you could use less lighting power. Another (maybe better still) possibility would be some kind of light pipe made out of clear acrylic, I'm no expert on how these are designed but I have seen them on many a commercial product where a single bulb positioned in a hole in the light pipe provides a bright, even, line of light along its edge. But for now it works!! Happy new year!
Guy spends years building a vacuum tube computer in his spare time to ring a bell! Yeah, i can get down with that!
Wonderful. We have a one bit computer with memory problems that rings a bell. Sorta like a patient in a memory support ward asking for a nurse.
Looking forward to the "hey it's working" moment, followed by unscripted irritation about how the damn bell keeps ringing. 😃
Wishing you, and all who read this, a wonderful 2025 and many more to follow.
Happy New Year! Ding!
Your tenacity is inspirational.
Nice work. I like the installation of the dinger!
Your joy when things work is so infectious. I don't MEAN to smile, but... I just do. Excellent work sir. All the best for 2025!