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Logical Circuitry for Transistor Digital Computers
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Felker, H. |
| Copyright Year | 2009 |
| Abstract | MAN'S FIRST logical circuitry used gravity to supply the basic motive power in automatons of various complexities that were created from hydraulic devices l long before arithmetic was mechanized. Apparently these first automatons were used in mystic shrines and temples to impress the credulous. In these modern days our automatons are called giant brains and they are enshrined beh1nd plate glass in temples of business efficiency. And so history repeats itself. The logic circuits of a computing system are sometimes distinguished from the memory circuits by having the property of a fixed relation between output and input, whereas the relation in a memory is one that can be altered. Consider, however, a circuit assemblage with M input leads and N output leads. If the assembly is a logic circuit, the output is regarded as the logical consequence of the input signal. On the other hand, the assembly might be a memory circuit in which the input is an address and the output is the number stored at that address. In a permanent memory such as a ring translator2 or a photographic plate scanned by optical means,3 the relationship between input and output is fixed and the distinction between such a memory and a logic circuit is very obscure to say the least. In common usage, an arrangement for which the relation between input and output can be compactly stated is called a logic circuit. An arrangement in which the relationship between input and output cannot conveniently be defined except as a tabulation of inputs and corresponding outputs, is usually called a permanent memory or a translator. Such distinctions are probably not very significant and in the talks which these remarks introduce, the term "logical circuitry" will be used not only to include arrangements in which the relationship between input and output is permanent, but also to include the bits and pieces of memory that are frequently associated w1th such circuits. When the transistor was first announced, it seemed clear to some that the digital computer, which for a long time had been an idea in search of efficient mechanization, would be able to escape from the awkwardness of vacuum-tube circuitry into a more natural realization. The first transistors, however, were unruly devices. Even today most computing is being done with vacuum tubes. However, no one (to the author's knowledge) is p1anning new machines based on vacuum tubes. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://csdl.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1958/5052/00/50520017.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
