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Michael Gardi built a nice replica of the Minivac 601 computer kit, and made the plans available on Instructables.

Created by information theory pioneer Claude Shannon as an educational toy for teaching digital circuits, the Minivac 601 Digital Computer Kit was billed as an electromechanical digital computer system. Produced by Scientific Development Corporation in the early 1960s it sold for $85 (about $720 today).

Minivac 601 used electromechanical relays as logic switches as well as for very basic storage. Simple DPDT switches and SPDT push buttons made up the binary inputs, with lights to represent the outputs. A large motorized dial allowed the user to enter decimal or hexadecimal numbers, and to output numbers, or to act as a clock signal generator. For more information about the Minivac 601 here are some additional references:

Wikipedia
Center for Computing History
Time-Line Computer Archive

The Instructable presented here is for a full size replica of that Minivac 601 from 1961. I have tried to remain as true to the original as possible given the technologies and resources available to me. I don’t have a “vintage” unit so this replica has been constructed based on photos and from the original manuals that were available online. I have included these manuals in PDF format as part of this project. I brought these files to a local copy center and had them printed as the spiral bound booklets you can see [below]. I’m really happy with the results.

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Master maker Simone Giertz and her friends transformed her Tesla Model 3 into an electric pickup truck. Their fake TV commercial is above; build video below. TRUCKLA: Available nowhere. Now.

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Sir Paul McCartney turns 77 today. To celebrate, enjoy this lovely cover of “Yesterday” as recorded by country music superstar Tammy Wynette in 1968.

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This is a reminder to wear seatbelts when flying.

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I’ve had a Brother wireless laser printer for close to 10 years. It’s so much faster and cheaper than an inkjet printer, and doesn’t cause problems like an inkjet printer.  Right now, Amazon is selling the Brother HL-L2350DW, which prints on two-sides of a sheet, for . Official toner cartridges are for a high-yield toner cartridge (3,000 pages), but you can get TWO third-party high-yield cartridges for just , making this a cheap, reliable printer. Read the rest

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I never thought I had a distinctive Colorado accent until people from California noted my dropped Gs at the end of “ing” words. I’ve since stopped dropping Gs, but when I go back to Colorado I can’t help myself and I drop my Gs. In this Condé Nast Traveler video, 50 people from 50 US states speak in their local accents.

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My daughter is taking a precalc summer school course. Last night she was doing her homework, which was about verifying trigonometric identities. Out of the 25 homework problems, there was one that she got stuck on. I decided to give it a try and spent two hours on it without solving it.

Here it is. Verify the identity:

(sec x – tan x)² = (1 – sin x )/(1 + sin x )

You don’t need to know anything about trigonometry to solve this. All you need to know are the fundamental trigonometric identities, which are:

My daughter is in class now and she texted me the answer. There’s not too many steps involved. Let’s see how fast you can solve it. Read the rest

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Bon Appetit’s 20-tip roundup of salad-making tips is full of culinary wisdom, from the mechanical (how to use a salad-spinner properly and how to apply dressing for a good, even coat that doesn’t turn delicates to mush) to the chemical (using salt to tenderize raw cabbage) to the culinary (toast your nuts, put chopped veg in your dressing, mix your vinegars). It’s a great and timely piece for anyone getting ready to enjoy the summer’s garden veg or anyone trying to get kids to eat more veggies. (via Kottke)

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Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle (who also founded the company Alexa, now an Amazon division) ordered a pack of Sharpies from Amazon using the Internet Archive’s business account, then, minutes later, ordered another pack using his personal account, both to be delivered to the Internet Archive: the order for the Internet Archive was priced at $8.63, while the personal order was priced at $12.37.

According to Kahle, the price difference is a feature, not a bug: businesses who pay extra for Business Prime ($179/year versus $99 for non-business Prime) get significant discounts on some items.

I have Business Prime and I see the price as $12.63 whether in a logged in tab, or in private browsing mode.

Below are the receipt for the Internet Archive, offer to me, and offer to my home business account (same price as the Internet Archive). Turns out I stumbled upon “Business Pricing.” It’s a “feature.” Business Prime costs $179/year, as opposed to consumer Prime for $99/year.

Amazon.com Charging Me 43% More Than Another Customer [Brewster Kahle]

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