On 08/17/2011 06:05 PM, Ed Gould wrote:
Rick,
My vague memory was a 407 read cards and you had a board you could place wires
what you wanted to o print add subtract and take the results and print it out
on the printer(132? Positions?). The wires were collided. So you could
manipulate the data if needed and move it to the print buffer .
I don't think you could divide just add subtract and maybe multiply. ( not
sure about multiply).
Ed
I used to have a xerox copy of a 407 board wiring configuration that was
supposed to do multiplication. I never tried it, as no longer had
access to a 407 at the time I first saw this, but preserved it just
because it was fascinating that it could be done at all.
The 407 had the ability to suppress card advance and re-read the same
card multiple times. Someone figured out how to use that feature to
perform multiplication by repeated addition. No doubt would have been a
slow as heck, but amazing that it could be done at all.
--
Joel C. Ewing, Bentonville, AR jcew...@acm.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO
Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
