Inside a vintage aerospace navigation computer of uncertain purpose

Hi !

I came here to post your article and found you did it already.

Thank you, it's full of interesting details and beautiful pictures.

Computer science is old enough that we can do "computer archeology" nowadays.

It feels like you found a treasure from an ancient civilization and try to understand what it does and how it works.

How did you obtain it?

Usage Electric (see YouTube) obtained it and sent it to me to see if I could figure out more about it.

Are you tempted to try to repair it and get it up and running (even partially if it's possible) ?

I'm tempted, of course. But without any information on it, getting it working would be very time consuming. I'm trying not to get distracted with too many side projects.

Yes, that makes sense, it should take a long time to get it working.

Is it possible to "simply" power a few electromagnets to see a few numbers spinning?

Anyway, you're right, ideas are infinite, time is not. It's good to choose what we spend our time on.

Yes, we already powered up the display and got the numbers to spin, although not all of them work.

This was a fascinating read! Hopefully you figure out what it is sometime.