CARDIAC simulator in JavaScript

Most folks will be unfamiliar with this, but back in the way back times Bell Labs sold or gave away a small cardboard kit to educators to help them teach computation to students. They called it "A CARDboard Illustration Aid to Computation" or CARDIAC. Described on the Wikipedia page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CARDboard_Illustrative_Aid_to_C... it had a wonderful manual that came with it. This is one of the nicer simulators for it.

Grade 10 computer class. We spent the first half of the course cranking out programs on the CARDIAC (second half in BASIC). I had been playing with various languages without much guidance for years before this, but it wasn't until this silly little cardboard computer that the mechanics of computing became clear.

The CARDIAC was my first introduction to computing. This is a cool little project, but while nostalgia may cast a warm glow, the truth is that most of my class found the CARDIAC to be mind-numbingly boring. I was thankful when we moved on to Basic and Fortran.

Boy does this bring back memories. I still have my CARDIAC somewhere. I think it was my seventh or eighth grade science teacher that gave it to me.

Still have my Digi-Comp I in a box somewhere. Boy, did that thing make a racket. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digi-Comp_I