Chown ???

[Jim]

Les wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-04-11 at 11:09 +0930, Tim wrote:
>   
>> On Fri, 2009-04-10 at 10:27 -0400, Peter Neilson wrote:
>>     
>>> Once knew someone who built himself a computer out of old pinball 
>>> machines and an Oliver typewriter.
>>>       
>> Reminds me a story we were told while we were supposed to be studying
>> audio electronics:  Gutted pinball machines were discovered near a
>> Russian embassy, the reason being that they contained integrated
>> circuits that were on the embargo list of things not to be sold to them.
>> Naturally, some wag at the back of the class couldn't resist play-acting
>> how the Russians would launch their missiles, to everyone's amusement -
>> miming pulling back the spring loaded rod that fires the ball off onto
>> the table.
>>
>>     
>>> I also remember when I walked to school through snow deeper than I was
>>> tall, and it was uphill both ways.
>>>       
>> Bah, we didn't even have snow back then...  ;-)
>>     
>
> I used to help my Uncle run a pinball route.  But I don't remember them
> having I.C.'s.  Must have been after the 60's.  The ones I worked on
> then had accumulators made up of rotary solenoids, and stepper switches
> (not motorized, just a solenoid pulling on a ratchet or ratchets to
> advance the counters.).  The randomizer for the match number play was
> simply another ratchet mechanism that would run for a set period of
> time, but the steps were intermittant, yeilding a sort of psuedo random
> generator.  There were some that had sequential relays to control some
> of the kickers, and advance the score mechanisms.  They were really
> interesting electromechanical bits of work.
>
> Regards,
> Les H
>
>   
IC's never came out that much until the early 70's ,and then they were 
TTL's (Transistor-Transistor-Logic) , they were
the chips that got hot to the touch.  The low powered IC's were CMOS , 
first produced by RCA, CMOS is the tech.
used in cars today.