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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 185: Cooper 59
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 140
Back at the office, Brian turned his attention to getting Derek and Vashti up to speed on their project. “The point is, really, that we’re anticipating an advance in technology that should emerge within the next four or five years--the development of the integrated circuit. When that happens, we want to have an efficient design ready to roll that will get maximum power from a minimalist design, so we can put the first electronic computer on the market. In the present we test it by building prototypes on large scale using transistors and a few other semiconductors.”
“The other aspect,” Derek suggested, “is developing the machine language that can talk to these circuits and tell them what to do. That’s probably some rather complex math, there. I mean, with the Babbage machine it was a matter of setting the switches manually to input the equation you wanted solved, but to make a useful computer for business purposes you need to be able to input those values electronically. We’re also going to have to work in binary, and create our own version of ASCII, which means coding at two to the eighth, two hundred fifty-six characters one of which is null.”
“That sounds like my job,” Vashti said.
“So, where are we on the circuit design?” Derek asked, and Brian pulled out files containing proposed circuit configurations. He looked over them. “This one is promising,” he said, then to another, “that one I think is a bit bloated, but has some good ideas.” He went through the stack of about a dozen designs, commenting thus on each of them, and concluded, “I’m not sure I’d have started with any of those ideas, but most of them have merit and just need work. Of course, it might be simplest to begin with an electronic calculator and build from there. That makes the inputs a bit easier--digit buttons that enter values into the stacks, function buttons that define the relationships between the stacks. After all, the simplest computer is a giant electronic abacus, and if you start there you give yourself the potential to build on top of it.”
That made sense, and Brian was embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of it. On the other hand, for all his knowledge of computer hardware and software, he had come from an era where the phrase “build your own computer” meant buy a motherboard, processor, video card, sound card, memory chips, and power supply and put them all together in one case. He had never before actually built a computer from basic electronic components--and Derek had, or nearly so, doing it with vacuum tubes. That was the direction they should go, starting with a calculator. He couldn’t expect too much from his computing machine at the start, and should recognize that once he got that far he would have the groundwork for something more.
“Can I take these? Do they have photocopiers or something yet?”
“Um--yes, and no. Keep them in the building.”
“Right. I’ll go over them, and put together something I think worth testing for a calculator. Where do I work?”
Brian found desks in the group for the two of them, displacing two secretaries and promising that they would have new desks by Monday, then put in a call to get the new desks moved to the floor. It was getting a bit crowded, but it was moving forward.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
