THE STONE AGE ELECTRONIC CALCULTOR

deadlymuskox

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in chatting about how to make an Electronic Calculator if you were transported back to the Stone age and you could only take this manual.

here is a list of other building requirements.
1. It has to be electric. No abacus's, slide rules, mechanical calculators, differential engines etc.
2. It has to be easily transportable in the wild so no big machinery.
3. has to be built by one person.
4. we must assume that this person has not tools.
5. we must take into consideration that this person needs to survive in the wild as well.

This thread is meant for people who want to try to make the manual not those who want to talk about whether it is possible or why to make the manual. If you would like to have a discussion about that please create another thread and link. This is meant to be fun... and meaningfull.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pvm4nF1Yb0&feature=related

pljudge321

You'd probably be better off posting this in the engineering forum.

deadlymuskox

what engineering forum?

ixoy

deadlymuskox wrote: »

what engineering forum?

The one I've just moved it too with re-direct link.

Mods feel free to treat this as you see fit - I just thought here might be a better home!

deadlymuskox

where is the redirect link?

pljudge321

I'll start it off for you.

Step 1: Acquire copper - will require a lot of mining and smelting.

mawk

or silver. or gold which might be easier all round. that can just be found on the ground or in a stream.

tbh

Capt'n Midnight

deadlymuskox wrote: »

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in chatting about how to make an Electronic Calculator if you were transported back to the Stone age and you could only take this manual.

here is a list of other building requirements.
1. It has to be electric. No abacus's, slide rules, mechanical calculators, differential engines etc.
2. It has to be easily transportable in the wild so no big machinery.
3. has to be built by one person.
4. we must assume that this person has not tools.
5. we must take into consideration that this person needs to survive in the wild as well.

You want us to build a portable electronic calculator, which in the real world was predated by television, space travel and atomic bombs, passenger airplane technology hasn't really progressed much since the 1950's. More electronics and lighter, stronger materials accounts for most of the development in planes and engines since. We are still using the same type of internal comustion engines and nulcear power stations.

Short answer is you can't

Slide rule was enough to build everything apart from the H-Bomb till the end of the 1960's. A slide rule can be made of two bits of wood. You would need a sharp edge to make marks, and a compass / string to size up the notches.

To be portable and electronic you need semiconductors, valves would be too big / would use too much power. The purity levels needed require a civilisation. They were first made to that level after spending billions on radar during world war two, when a billion dollars was a lot of money and making transformers from silver wasn't a biggie .


If going back in time between the bronze age and the 1800's one key technology to know is that varnish or paint can be used to insulate copper wire. Then you can get electric power from water or wind mills. And electrolysis will reveal new elements.

You can make semiconductors from copper and lead but they are so inefficient they were discarded overnight when proper semiconductors arrived. They were little better than a motor-generator combo.

grateface

This reminded me of this comic strip.
Quite Deep!

stylers

if you look back at the history of early electronic calculators though (50's - 70's) its fascinating how lads managed to make them work and do square roots and other complex calculations without getting a processor involved, by ingenious use of delay line circuits etc - and in those days desktop calculators made or broke companies (think IBM etc). they cost t'uppence nowadays, but they cost a whole years wages back then. And intel's 4004 microprocessor was a by-product of a calculator chipset which was rejected..

Kareir

wasnt there something about using ants in tubes to punch holes in a card, giving an answer? maybe that would work... I think i recall hearing something like that, although tbh it could have been in the Discworld. Or, rather, it is, but i thought it was based on reality.

_Kar.

t-ha

I will contribute the parthian battery to this little venture...

we have iron and copper right?

Capt'n Midnight

t-ha wrote: »

I will contribute the parthian battery to this little venture...

we have iron and copper right?

saw a documentary on this recently and the muppet used a multimeter to show a little over 4 volts on it

* voltage has nothing to do with power
* half cell voltages means you need exotic chemicals to do this, for a start water would electrolyse lower than this so rules out most combinations.

today specialised lithium cells give up to 3.9V , but were not available to the ancients. Silver - Zinc or Lead acid might have been available but give only half the voltage. Silver was very expensive in those days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_standard_electrode_potentials