As some of you know, for the last few weeks I have been researching the first commercial transistor computer, Metrovick 950 (and it is based on the first transistor computer ever, making things even more interesting)

[nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt]

As some of you know, for the last few weeks I have been researching the first commercial transistor computer, Metrovick 950 (and it is based on the first transistor computer ever, making things even more interesting).

I wrote the emulator for the computer, a simple assembler, and a handful of toys to get a grasp of the extremely frugal digital computing. What does it feel like to use a machine built on 250 transistors, operating at 200 operations per second or so? Can it display anime girls? (It IS a very important feature of any computer!!!) Is there even a point in such a computer?

I was hoping to write a long post about it, but my fatigue gave birth to a migraine (or the other way around), so the best I can do is to start a thread 🧵 It can be of interest for people who love computer history, want to know more about small computers of the 50's like the Bendix G-15 Usagi Electric has, and those who are thinking of building bit-serial computers.

The MV950 emulator repo: https://git.sr.ht/~nkali/mv950toy

[amoroso@oldbytes.space]

@nina_kali_nina Your emulator was shared on Lobsters:

https://lobste.rs/s/0wyas7

[nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt]

@amoroso thanks for sharing the link! I believe it is a very niche project, but if other people like it, I'm happy

[amoroso@oldbytes.space]

@nina_kali_nina You're welcome. I think being niche is part of why it's interesting: emulators of very early systems are rare.