You are talking EAC's (Electric Accounting Machines) as built by IBM and others. IBM did build and service Scoreboards for awhile. This was a point in time where the machines were not sold, lease only so current survivors are not likely. An IBM 403 Accounting machine had several hundred multicontact relays as I recall. They were quite reliable. That machine also weighed about 2300 pounds and was programmed with a removable wiring panel. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to go back to that technology. Rest In Peace! John Ferrell 6241 Phillippi Rd Julian NC 27283 Phone: (336)685-9606 Dixie Competition Products NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW "My Competition is Not My Enemy" ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter L. Peres" To: Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2002 4:30 AM Subject: Re: [OT] :Old (ancient) message scrolling > >> use a large drum with multiple sets of brushes... > > > >Like a music box ? > > Relay shift registers were not unknown in 1930. You don't really believe > that 1000's of contacts would operate in parallel reliably over any kind > of time, do you ? A 5x7 display 20 characters long (theirs were longer) > would require 700 parallel contacts and special machine to make the > tape/drums. Not likely. A 7 track tape punched directly with character > patterns on a special puncher and a single reader followed by a relay or > thyratron shift register would be much more like it. > > I don't believe that the information about those things is gone. Who made > them ? Any company names ? > > Peter > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList > mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu > > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu