Detailed miniature models of historic computer | Hacker News Reader

Detailed miniature models of historic computer

miniatua.com

87 pointszwieback18 comments

Those are precious.

There's a really nice IBM 1401 emulator.[1] It's written in Unreal Engine. You can walk around the virtual computer room, mount tapes, punch cards, operate the controls, and it all works.

[1] https://rolffson.de/

Thank you for linking this. I read about old computer stuff all the time on the internet and I've never seen it, and I'm kind of surprised that's the case.

I am super excited to screw around with this tomorrow, and hope my kids will enjoy it too.

I'm already sharing it around on irc and stuff. Thanks again.

This sounds really cool! Do you know of any other similar projects?

It would be awesome to walk around the room in Bletchley Park, working on the Collosus (apparently the name of the computer Turing & Co. made during WWII [1]) in a simulator game. Now put it in VR? REALLY cool.

1: https://www.tnmoc.org/colossus

An Analytical Engine in UE would be more fun. Here's one that runs in a browser, but without the graphics.[1] There are incomplete 3D models. Nobody seems to have made a full working 3D model, though.

Colossus wasn't a general-purpose computer. It was a key-tester, like a Bitcoin miner, running through a sequence of patterns and testing for a match.

[1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/emulator.html

These dioramas are from a different world from historic computers, but they share a medium and attention to minute detail. This and Bobby Fingers' other videos brought me too much joy not to share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aCMTpJx2cs

Very cute, but no Cray-1?

Here you go: https://www.chrisfenton.com/homebrew-cray-1a/

> WOPR, the War Operations Plan Response computer from the 1983 film "WarGames", is an iconic and influential character in the history of science fiction cinema.

A fully animated 1:12 scale replica of the movie famous computer with hundreds of leds reproducing the light patterns of the original.

...but can it play Tic Tac Toe?

Forget Tic Tac Toe; can it play Global Thermonuclear War?

fine.

I'd buy one of the ones with a screen, keyboard and floppies, at a much higher price; if all of it worked and could be used say, with a toothpick and pair of tweezers. My guess is we're just about there with embedded stuff that it would be doable.

This is going to trigger the collecting instinct of so many nerds.

Must resist…. must resist!

It triggers my building instincts. I need to look away before my project tree rotates again.

No Thinking Machines CM-1/CM-2?

Okay, I suddenly want a Wes Anderson movie about vintage computers.

I'd like to see a working MEMS version of a Zuse Z3.

Anyone know if someone is selling something similar?

Makes me want to build a WOPR Raspberry pi case.

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