Binary Math... musings about 10-10-10

As clients get to know me during the second or third visit, the question usually comes up "... so when did you get started working with computers?"  That always makes me chuckle, as I reminisce back to the days of 3rd grade (in 1964) - while my fellow students were working on multiplication and division, I was already converting between Binary, Hex, and Decimal number systems while doing the calculations.  You see, my older brother (thank you, Bob!) gave me a unique gift for my 9th birthday - a Digi-Comp1 - billed as  the "...first real operating digital computer in plastic."

While the Binary Readout was only 3 digits, the mechanical marvel opened my mind to digital logic; complete with an understanding of accumulators and gates, etc. that has served me well over the past 46 years.  You can read more about this set of plastic tabs and metal rods at the following blog site: www.oldcomputermuseum.com/digicomp_1.html.  That little thing cost my brother about $5.95, but I've seen them selling on eBay for over $100!

And now I've just learned that there are sufficient other "fans" of this little device that they have actually started producing it again.  If you'd like to make a gift of something wondrous for a child in your family, you can order the Digi-Comp1 v2.0 at the following site: www.mindsontoys.com/dc1_main.htm

And when it arrives, if you need some help assembling it - give me a call - I'll be over in a jiffy!